#everybody look at vi's hair i like how it turned out

[bramblesnbones]

Closer

[enhaloverss]

Do you hate me pt.3

-He did what?

Both girls exclaimed loudly at the same time, the whole dorm probably hearing.

-You heard me, he just stepped in and just started to get me out of this weird situation, I think?

-It doesn’t surprise me coming from him honestly, I mean last year he threw chalks at bullies. But I didn’t actually think he’d step up for you.

-He threw what?

They both laughed at my expression and over the fact that that was the only thing I picked up from what they told me.

-Well, I don’t know why but I feel like your interactions with him are going to be more and more interesting…

The three of us got up and went in the library’s direction to borrow some books. Violet wanted to read about Muggle’s cooking, her great passion apparently.

-You should come to mine one day, both of you, I’ll make your dream come true Vi.

Said Sarah, holding onto a pile of books about potions. She noticed our staring and later on the smiles on our faces.

-Yes I’m that desperate, no comments please.

I went up and stumbled upon a book about the magic creatures that lived in the lake of Hogwarts. My brother once told me that anyone was forbidden from flying above it because there was a giant calamari living there. I never believed him until a picture of it was released in a newspaper.

We read for about an hour before the girls decided to get some rest before dinner, apparently tired from the flying lessons. I accompanied them back to our room but chose to have a little stroll around the castle alone.

I decided to go to the plains, right behind Hagrid’s garden. It was a big open space with a lot of flowers and even some tiny waterfalls. I was about to sit when I noticed someone not far away, talking to someone else. I approached them and they turned around when they felt my presence.

It was a boy. A Ravenclaw with middle length curly ginger hair and a lot of freckles all across his face.

He jumped back at my presence, apparently not used to seeing anybody around here.

-Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t want to scare you, I just got curious.

-No it’s fine, I’m just not used to seeing people here. I don’t really have friends so I spend most of my time here alone.

-Almost alone.

I said, while looking at the tiny creature on his lap.

-Oh, meet Mushroom, he is…

-A Niffler! I love them.

I said smiling.

-I’m Jude by the way, I’m in second year.

-Y/n, third year since two days only.

-I see, nice to meet you. You like magical creatures too?

-Yeah, I have a huge book about them!

I said sitting down next to him, but not too close.

-I could show it to you if you want.

-I’d like that.

We were just sitting here and talking, I think we talked for maybe more than an hour. I just met him but he was so nice he already felt like a little brother to me. I wonder how it was even possible that he didn’t have any friends, his kindness and gentleness were amazing. We only noticed it was time for us to go the Great Hall to grab some dinner when the sun started to set.

We separated in the corridor, each of us going to our own common rooms, before agreeing on meeting again same place in two days. I’m actually surprised I’m making friends that easily. Being social never was my best quality.

When I entered my room, Violet and Sarah were still sleeping and I wondered for a second if I should wake them up or let them sleep, but settled on the first option. I gently shock Violet first. It took her a few minutes before she was fully awake. She went to Sarah to wake her up, asking me at the same time where I was. I told her about Jude and she was happy that I was making friends with the same interests as me.

Everybody now awake, we decided to throw a sweatshirt on because it was starting to get fresher, and made our way for the third time today to the Great Hall. Arriving there, I immediately noticed it was way fuller than at lunch, finding a spot was gonna be hard. We sat next to a group of first years.

We were secretly laughing because we quickly realized they were talking about Professor Snape, saying how he was so rude and wondering how they were gonna survive six whole years with him.

I was actually lucky on this point, I’d have to bear with him only four years.

The Professor I was the most excited to meet was McGonagall. Sam told me a lot about her. I also heard that she is an animagus which is absolutely cool. I have so many questions to ask her about that, maybe this is the only class I’ll stay at once finished, if it allows me to know more about animagus’.

-We should go to Hogsmeade this weekend y/n! Vi and I could show you around the village!

-Oh my god yes that’s a great idea! But wait, we’re allowed to go outside the castle on weekends?

-If your parents give a permission yes you can of course!

Sarah said, her mouth full of mashed potatoes.

-I’ll send them an owl this week then, hopefully they’ll say yes.

Going to Hogsmeade really excited me, I was thrilled to finally be able to try Miss Rosmerta’s famous butterbeer.

I felt a light tap on my shoulder, almost like the person didn’t want to bother me and I turned to look up and see Jude’s smiling face, he quickly said hi to Violet and Sarah before going away and waving at me, saying he just wanted to quickly drop by before going back to his room. He really had such a cute little brother energy. Before going back to our conversation, I noticed Jude stopping by the Gryffindor’s table, before saying hello quickly to… Jungwon? These two know each other? Maybe I’ll ask Jude but not right now, I knew him for not even twenty four hours and I knew that he was pretty shy and secretive, I’ll let him tell me when he’d be comfortable enough doing so.

-That’s Jude right, the one you told us about?

Asked Violet.

-Yes it’s him!

-He seems really nice!

Said Sarah.

-A bit shy but really nice.

-He has a hard time making friends, I’m just glad I found him, we have a lot in common.

And with that, we went back to our room. We took a corridor and I heard what seemed like people muttering, like being really careful nobody was hearing them. I told Violet and Sarah and they looked at each other, nodding before following down the dark alley, only lit by the light of the candles on the walls. We walked on our tipy toes, making extra sure to not make any noise when we finally could hear what the persons were talking about. It sounded like two professors, Snape was one of them for sure and I didn’t recognize the voice of the other one.

-But she is his sister, what if she has the same crazy ideas as him?

-Don’t be ridiculous professor Snape, Y/n is different from her brother, and you and I both know Sam was not at fault in what happened last year. We had to expel him because he put another student in danger but it was indirectly, none of this was his fault. That’s actually why the other student also got expelled. Now if you excuse me, I have classes to prepare.

We suddenly panicked and decided to hide in the first room that we saw, opened the door and carefully shut it. We were inside an empty classroom and we heard the footsteps passing by before disappearing further in the corridor.

We stayed here a solid five minutes, Violet and Sarah too scared of getting caught, and me, trying to figure out everything I just heard, my mind going into a spiral of thoughts. They were talking about me, and about the reason Sam got expelled. Maybe I lied, I definitely was going to investigate this year.

We quietly went back to our room, and after closing our door and taking our sweatshirts off, the girls straight up started talking.

-Oh my god y/n they were talking about your brother and you!

Exclaimed Violet with excitement.

-Are you gonna try to dig in, we could help you know.

-I don’t know guys, I don’t wanna make the same mistakes as my brother and get you fired too.

-Well, we’ll be careful, and we could be useful, you don’t know anything about Hogwarts!

Sarah smiled because she knew she already convinced me, and I sighed before agreeing.

-Fine, but we’ll be extra careful, and nobody else has to know except us three.

They exclaimed in joy and happily danced around the room, saying that their third year was about to be a Sherlock Holmes’ case. I really didn’t see myself doing this on my own anymore.

We went to bed the girls excited about the new adventures that were waiting for us, me too, but also scared about what was about to come, what was I about to learn. I finally closed my eyes and let sleep take over.

I suddenly woke up, the room was still pitch black and I wondered what time it was for a second. I turned around to look at the clock and sighed when I realized it was five fifty, breakfast was in two hours and classes in three. It was useless to fall asleep again at this point. I carefully got up to not wake up Sarah nor Vi, took my wand, just in case, and decided to go out for some exploration.

I’d just have to be back in the dorms by seven thirty, that way nobody would notice I was gone for a few hours. At least I hoped so, it’d be better if I didn’t get into trouble not even a week after being here.

I started quietly wandering around the castle, before deciding upon going outside, to the plains were I met Jude yesterday.

The sun was starting to rise, strokes of oranges and pinks adorning the sky. A few clouds were moving due to the cool breeze that was starting to rise. I sat on the grass and just enjoyed the moment, before noticing a little movement in a bush. Seems like a little someone was in there.

I approached it slowly, trying not to scare whatever was in there. I lifted the leaves only to find a little bowtruckle, hiding behind a branch.

I let my hands down and tried to not get to close to him. I read a lot about them, it takes a lot for them to trust you, they’re really shy and don’t open up easily but once they do they become quit clingy. I sat in front of him.

-Hey there, I’m not gonna touch you, or hurt you. I’ll keep my distance, if you wanna come out of here.

It just looked at me, completely disappearing behind the branch before only letting his head visible.

I smiled at him, he was really cute. I could see he was interested and curious but still really cautious.

-I’m y/n, nice to meet you little one.

He looked at me for a few seconds before completely going out and standing next to the branch, holding it with its tiny hands.

-You were watching me weren’t you? You’re a really curious little thing. I’m also curious about you, maybe we could learn about each other don’t you think?

He tilted his head, looked at me briefly and diverted his gaze somewhere else.

-Look, I have to go if I don’t wanna get caught, but I’ll come back to look for you. Bye little one.

I got up and looked at him one last time, before leaving the fields to go back to my room, it was already seven and I needed to head back to take a shower and change before breakfast.

When I arrived in the room, the girls were still asleep, this time I had to wake them up tho, or we’d be late. Violet woke up quite easily so I told her that I was going to the shower and that she could try to wake up Sarah. She yawned but gave me a thumbs up. I smiled at her, wishing her good luck with Sarah, if there’s one thing I learned about her is that she didn’t like being waken up.

I stepped in the shower and decided to also wash my hair, and then got dressed in my uniform again, also putting the wool jacket this time, the temperatures were already getting fresher.

When I stepped out of the shower and went back to the room Violet was changed and told me that Sarah went in the toilets to change and that she’d be back soon.

Today’s classes were Spells and metamorphosis for the morning and magical creatures’ care in the afternoon. I couldn’t wait, all of today’s classes seemed really interesting to me. Sarah came back in our room, throwing her pajama on the bed before saying hello to me. And we were off the Great Hall again, another day ahead of us.

The breakfast rolled by pretty fast and our first class was about to start. Vi entered first, holding the door for me and Sarah and I greeted the professor before we sat next to each other on the middle bench, not to high, not to low, just the right place. The other students came in one by one. All of the houses were mixed up for this class, which was really cool in my opinion, we could get to know and befriend students from other houses that way. A girl with short purple hair from Ravenclaw approached me, putting her books next to mine.

-Can I sit here?

She asked smiling at me.

-Yes of course, I’m not waiting for anybody so you can.

She thanked me and sat next to me.

-My name is Anna by the way, nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too Anna, I’m y/n, and this is Violet and Sarah is next to her.

They said hi to each other before the professor asked for silence, the lesson started.

We were learning Amplificatum today, a spell to make any object bigger. We were training on apples. The class was divided in two groups, one was gonna learn about how to pronounce it, what gesture to do, the cases in which you could absolutely not use it,… while the other one was gonna do theory, basically how the spell was invented and by who, what for,… The groups were gonna be switched and once everybody would be done the whole class was gonna try to cast the spell.

We were divided in two groups really easily, the right side of the class and the left one.

Our side was starting with theory and I was glad it was this first, I always like it better when we start with the boring stuff. We were alone for this part of the class, the board was full of information that we had to copy and memorize for the next time. Copying the lesson in notes was pretty quick and we had at least twenty minutes before we were gonna switch with the other group. I decided to use this free time to get to know Anna. She was in third year like us obviously. She was a really sweet girl, interested in cooking, she wanted to be a wizard chef later. We had things in common, I also liked cooking even if I was more of a baking kind of girl. She also liked reading books like me and I told her we could sometime have a picnic together with the girls, cook and bake sweets and read books. She was thrilled by the idea. She told me she was jealous of our dorms because we were right next to the kitchens and could easily steal food if we were feeling hungry in the middle of the night. The idea was tempting but honestly I wouldn’t bring myself to try. I also asked her about her common room, I knew Ravenclaw’s was one of the prettiest, if not the prettiest because of how my brother described it to me.

And with how Anna described it too, it really felt like the room was magical, only bad point is that they were in one of the highest towers of Hogwarts, the wind was always blowing really loud in the corridors and it was always cold.

The theory class ended after 10 minutes of us speaking with Anna, Violet also quickly bonded with her, having a shared passion for cooking, before we got to switch with the interesting part.

We were with the professor this time, who was trying to tell everybody to switch side in calm, ninety percent absolutely not listening. When we successfully made our way through running students and seated, our lesson started.

The professor explained the same things to us, told us how to correctly pronounce the spell and made us repeat after him. We were all laughing at Vi’s pronunciation because she heavily mangled the word, the professor telling her it was her head she was gonna amplify if she pronounced it like that.

Then, we all got our wands out and tried to properly do the gesture, that was easier than the first step honestly. I realized it was actually the first time I was seeing the girl’s wands, I never really paid attention to that before. Violet’s wand was the longest out of us four. It was made in oak wood and the core was dragon heartstrings. Sarah ‘s wand was much shorter and seemed more flexible, it was made out of birch wood and had a unicorn hair. Anna’s was also oak but way darker and also had a unicorn hair. Mine was acacia wood and the core was different then most student here since my wand was not from Ollivander’s, or from the UK in general. I had a Veela hair core.

The professor placed apples in front of every single one of us and told us it was finally time for us to try.

-How many students got it right in the previous group professor? Asked Violet, scared of messing up the spell.

-About half successfully amplified the apple at the right size and the other half made it either too big or too small, but I’m sure you’ll make it just right. He answered, smiling at us.

-Now, cast the spell.

A wave of ‘amplificatum’ took over the quiet of the classroom, accompanied by some screams of students having created gigantic apples, enough to bake a pie to feed the whole castle.

We all looked at each other and nodded, before pronouncing the spell out loud, making the right gesture at the same time.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the results, when we heard the professor gasp.

I opened my eyes, only to come to face with 4 perfectly amplified apples. We all looked at each other before screaming in joy in unison. The professor clapping.

-Very good girls, 10 points for each of you for this perfect spell casting and amazing synchronization if I might had. Okay great everyone, class is done for today, I’m proud of the results keep going and see you next week.

And with that, everyone excited the classroom.

Sarah, Violet and I saying goodbye to Anna. I hoped we were going to share more classes with her because the four of us really got along well.

Next class was metamorphosis with Professor McGonagall and I was thrilled about it.

Violet and Sarah told me she was a remarkable lady, full of knowledge, strict but also really nice and willing to help you if you regularly participated and listened in class. She was also a woman of words, always keeping her promises.

We entered the class and it was a big one. I loved the atmosphere of it. There was a big golden glob next the professor’s desk, and I really held myself from touching it.

The student’s desks were tables of two, and I told Violet and Sarah to sit with each other, I was right behind them so it was okay, moreover, I wouldn’t really need a friend next to me since I wasn’t gonna talk very much during this class, the content was something I was looking forward to.

I sat and got my books out and the professor came in and asked for the silence as the lesson was about to start.

-Hello everyone, welcome for another year at Hogwarts and in my classroom. This year will be really interesting for those who seek knowledge in metamorphosis. Our first lesson will be Felifors, or, turning a cat in a cauldron. You can all go and take a cat, you have an hour to try to successfully turn it into a cauldron. I’ll explain to you the steps one by one. Off you go.

I looked at Violet and Sarah and we got up to pick up a cat.

-You guys are right, she’s amazing! She’s speaking so calmly but everybody’s listening to her, she’s so cool for that honestly, respect.

I sat back and put the cat in front of me, and it surprisingly sit still and didn’t move, it was just looking at me. Seems like I picked the right one, I thought, looking around and seeing some students struggling a lot with their cats who were moving nonstop and meowing while trying to get on them.

Professor McGonagall told us that now we needed to calm our pets as much as possible, the more stressed an animal is, the worst a spell turns out. Sometimes the animal can even die if it’s in really bad conditions and someone still try$ies to cast a spell on them. I guess same goes for humans, to be able to success in casting a spell, you need to be as calm as ever, or you mess up.

-Okay, I think this might be my area. I said, looking at the cat.

I’ve always liked animals, magical or not, and found myself drawn to them as much as they were drawn to me.

I decided to put my hands in front of the cat first, to show him they weren’t something dangerous and I wasn’t gonna hurt him. Then I slowly approached my hands and let them face towards him but still without touching him. And when he felt like it, he put his head to my hands, and then his body. I could pet him now.

Animals are like humans in my opinion, you can’t touch them if you don’t know if they want it or not, they have boundaries, like us, and I like to respect that.

The cat was purring and I think it was my sign that it was comfortable enough with me.

I looked up, only to see Professor McGonagall right in front of my desk.

-Seems like you have a gift with animals Miss y/l/n. She said smiling at the sight of the cat laying it’s head on me.

-Oh, you know me? And, yes, seems like it. I said smiling softly.

-Of course I know you, your brother was a great student, I’m sure you’ll be just as good as him. Now, try to cast Felifors.

I nodded, distanced myself a little from the cat, and cast the spell.

The next thing I saw was a cauldron, sitting right were the cat once was, only for it to turn back to a cat about twenty seconds later.

-Seems like it’s a success Miss y/l/n, congratulations.

-Thanks Professor. I answered smiling.

-You can put the cat back where it was, unless you want to keep him company for the remaining 10 minutes, now if you’ll excuse me I have some business to attend, she said, while pointing to a student whose cat claws where buried in his sweater.

As soon as McGonagall went away, Violet and Sarah turned around, showing me their cauldrons, Violet’s was neat and perfect but Sarah’s one had a long tail.

-Hey, at least it’s a cauldron, she said laughing.

The bell rang, and we were off to lunch once again.

[scarisd3ad]

To the end and back [daryl Dixon x reader]

Chapter five - everything has changed

Masterlist

Taglist

Previous >> next

Summary - after the world ended you were sure you’d never find love again but a certain archer catches your eyes and changes the entire trajectory of your life.

A/n - Last chapter of season 1, season 2 coming soon.

Tw- death, mentions of suicide, suicidal thoughts

'Ts-19'

Season 1 ep 6

edited

tw - death, mentions of suicide, and suicidal thoughts.

It opened it actually opened, I was sure no one was in there, that not one part of the government was left. We all walk in ready to see hordes of walkers, ready for this to be a trap set by some sick fuck that broke into the CDC. "Daryl, you cover the back" Shane orders. We walk in with Rick leading the way. He's got his gun pointed forward, ready to fire "hello? Hello?" he shouts as he walks forward.

"Close those doors. Watch for walkers." We slowly walk through the building. We're all alert, ready to see a horde of infected former CDC workers but there isn't its clean and pristine there's not one drop of blood in sight it looked like the world hadn't ended. every other building I've been in since the world ended had been littered with bodies, and blood stained the walls, but this looked like how it probably looked in the old world. like it was ready to be filled with doctors and scientists trying to figure out cures for diseases in the world. "Hello?!" Then we see him, a guy, a doctor, he has light brown hair, and he looks at least in his forties. At first, we think he's a walker, so we all get ready to shoot. "Anybody infected?" The guy shouts we put down our guns. "One of our groups was...he didn't make it" Rick answers.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" The guy asks as he walks a bit closer, he sounds tired like he's ready to give up. "A chance" Rick replies breathily. "Thats asking an awful lot these days." The guy inches a bit closer. Rick shakes his head agreeing "I know." a chance is a lot to ask for, sometimes even got a hefty price on it these days.

"You all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission." rick nods and replies "We can do that". The guy lowers his gun "you got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes it stays closed." Some of us end up running out grabbing anything we might need.

Dale, and t-dog close the two main doors and the man says "vi, seal the main entrance. kill the power up here" the rolling door closes back. "Rick grimes" Rick says sticking his hand out "dr. Edwin jenner."

-

The elevator hums as it descends. We're packed in it like sardines. "Doctors always go around packin' heat like that?" Daryl asks referring the the large gun dr. Jenner carried. "There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself....but you look harmless enough." He replies. "Except you, I'll have to keep my eye on you" he says to Carl which makes Carl grin a bit.

-

We're walking down a white hallway; it reminds me of the somehow eerie hallways of a hospital. "Are we underground?" Carol asks, with her brows furrowed up in confusion. Jenner turns around "Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner asks, "a little." Carol replies "try not to think about it." He says Turning back around and continuing to walk.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Jenners voice echos as he shouts. We enter a large room with bunches, and bunches of computers. computers that are supposed to be occupied by doctors. The lights flicker on. "Welcome to zone 5."

Where is everybody? The other doctors the staff?" Rick asks confusions flooding his face. we hoped for there to be more staff, more doctors trying to figure out what the hell was going on, but it seemed like Jenner was the last one left. "I'm it...it's just me here" Jenner replies which is disappointing to most of us. "What about the person you were speaking with? Vi?" Lori asks as we all come to a stop. "Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them...welcome." Jenner shouts.

A computerized voice comes over the overhead speakers "hello, guests. Welcome."

"I'm all that's left. I'm sorry" Jenner says as he turns around. We all get blood test. Since we haven't ate properly in the past month or two, we're all a bit woozy afterwards. I'm sitting across from Jenner watching as my blood drains into a small vile. He takes the vile out and retracts the needle. "All done" he says. I dizzily stand up from the chair. Glenn's stood behind me. He grabs both my arms stabilizing me. I've lost a lot of blood in the last few days. "You, okay?" Jenner asks. I nod slowly. "She's lost a lot of blood already; she hasn't eaten in days either. None of us have."

Jenner offers us dinner. He's got so much food and drinks. I haven't seen so much food in my entire life. We all seem happy, for the first time in the last few months. We're actually happy. We're all laughing and chitchatting like we're old friends.

"You know in Italy; children have a little bit of wine with dinner" Dale says as he hands a cup of wine to Lori. "And in France" Dale adds. "Well, when Carl is in Italy of France, he can have some then" Lori says covering up the cup that sat in front of Carl. "What's it gonna hurt? Come on" Rick says trying to persuade his wife to let there 12-year-old have some wine. Lori turns her head towards Rick with a small smile on her face "come on" Rick laughs.

"What?" Everyone's giggling as Lori shrugs. Dale hands Carl a cup with just a little bit of wine in it "there you are, young lad" Carl puts the cup up to his lips and takes a tiny sip we're all staring at carl waiting for his reaction. "Eww" Carl says as he scrunched up his face in disgust. We all burst out laughing again. I'm pretty sure we all remember our first drink and our reaction was pretty much the same as Carls.

"That's my boy. That's my boy" Lori says as she takes the cup from Carl and pours it into hers. "That tastes nasty" he says as he shakes his head. "Well, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane says. Glenn hasn't drunk much tonight. Probably doesn't want to be as hung over as he was this morning. I've had myself a few cups. By few I mean like five but I'm fine. "Not you, Glenn" Daryl says. Daryl's drunk as fuck. He's going to be fucked in the morning. "What?" Glenn asks raising his head, a little embarrassed that he's gotten called out. "Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get." Daryl says which makes all the men start laughing. The clinking of glass makes us all stop and turn our attention to Rick. "It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly." Rick says standing up. "He is more than just our host." T-dog says raising his glass.

"Hear hear!"

"Here's to you, doc. Booyah!" Daryl says raising the bottle of wine he had been drinking out of.

Booyah!"

"Thank you, doctor." Rick says quietly. "So, when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane asks. Which subsequently makes everyone's smiles fade. "All the uh..other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane don't need to do this now" Rick hisses as he sits back down. "Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move—supposed to find all the answers, instead we uh..we found him" Shane chuckles as he points towards Jenner. "Found one man. Why?"

"Well when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the uh military cordon go overrun, the rest bolted." Jenner explains. "Every last one?" Shane asks as he sinks down in his chair a bit. "No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They...opted out. There was a rash of suicides" that definitely killed the mood. What Jenner just said confirmed my suspicions, this was never going to end. We were just going to have to adapt, adapt to this new harsh reality, adapt to the monsters that have now taken over. If we didn't then we're dead. There was no end to this shit, this was just how we were going to have to live. One day hopefully when we get used to it we can have normalcy, homes, families, pets, but not now we have to learn first. Learn how to survive, learn how to live in this new world, learn how to live amongst the monsters, if we didn't, we'd never live.

"That was a bad time." Jenner whispers solemnly "You didn't leave, why" Andrea asks. "I just kept workin', hoping..to do some good."

"Dude, you are such a buzzkill, man" Glenn groans.

-

Once we were finished with dinner Jenner shows us around. We follow him down a hallway "most of the facility is powered down. Including housing, so you'll have to make do here." Jenner explains. "The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy." Jenner turns around addressing Carl, and Sophia. "Just don't plug in the video games, okay?" Both kids nod. "Or anything that draws power. The same applies—if you shower, go east on the hot water." Jenner says before turning back around and leaving, Glenn turns to all of us eyes widened "hot water?"

"That's what the man said" t-dog says with a laugh.

I decide to take a shower. I haven't had one in so long; I can't even remember the last time I washed my hair. Yeah, at times we'd go and bathe in the quarry but that was only sometimes.

The hot water feels like heaven. I'm so glad I had collected up shower supplies just hoping one day I'd be able to have a normal shower. I haven't shaved my legs in God knows how long. it's not like I miss having to shave my legs every day, but I do miss the feeling of bare legs under freshly warmed sheets. I miss the soft feeling of my legs after lotion. I miss the aspect of life that us as humans wouldn't think we'd miss. Things we found a hassle at the time but now we long for it. Like washing clothes, or dishes. At the time I hated slaving over the sink washing each dish, but now I miss it.

I shave my legs, and arms just to feel like the world was normal again. I'm sure I spend at least 2 minutes just smelling at the bottle of shampoo that smelt like strawberries and cream. I'm sure I stunk of sweat beforehand, I'm sure we all did. But we eventually didn't smell it our brains tricked us into not smelling it like our brains makes it seem like we can't see our nose even though we can.

-

I find myself a room to settle into, it's an office but it's got a couch so that's fine. I pull my blanket out of the bag I had brought in it's not clean and kind of smells like wood and fire, but it's a blanket.

Knock, knock, knock.

I sigh as I walk over to the door and unlock it. It's Daryl stumbling over his words like he's trying to practice what to say. His eyes widened as he sees me. "I- um I really fuckin' like ya" I peek out the hallway to see Glenn, and t-dog peeking out from behind a corner. All three are drunk (I'm probably just as equally drunk but we're not going to talk about it). "You like me?" I ask raising my eyebrows teasingly. I don't know when I started liking Daryl, I was scared of him for the longest time, but when did that fear turn into adoration. Maybe when he stayed with me when I was hurt in Atlanta. Maybe when he gave me that package of ramen noodles. "Yeah, I really f-fuckin' like you" I smile as he slurs his words. "I like you too Daryl" I whisper as I place my hand on his cheek and lean in kissing him. He wraps his arms around waist pulling me closer. I can hear Glenn and t-dog trying to quietly celebrate down the hall (there not, there actually really loud) I pull away my hand still on his cheek. He's blushing, it's kind of cute seeing a man so big, and tough be flustered. "You wanna come inside?" I ask he nods rapidly, and I pull him in closing the door behind us.

What I've learned is that drunk Daryl and sober Daryl, are two completely separate people. Drunk Daryl is way more open about his feelings, softer, nicer too.

-

I wake up in the middle of the night my body halfway on top of Daryl. He's got his arms wrapped around me while he's snoring quietly. We were lucky this couch was able to fit the both of us. I lay my head back against his bare chest and listen to his heartbeat.

The next time I wake up is when Daryl wakes up.

We're both sat on the couch, discussing what had happened last night. "So do you really like me, or was it like something Glenn and t-dog made you say?" I whisper. His brows furrow as he looks at me "it wasn' a lie. I wouldn' lie bout somethin' like that." I nod as I inch closer to him. "Do ya really like me?" He asks I nod. "Yeah, I really like you" he smiles, I've never really seen him smile much. He's always got this stone-cold serious look on his face, but not now.

He leans in close and presses a kiss to my lips. After a while of just sitting soaking up each other's company we get up and head to the kitchen area. Almost everyone's already there, I guess it's a little harder to estimate what time it is being underground and all. Glenn's moaning and groaning about his hangover which makes me laugh. He probably drank more than he'd even drank in his life yesterday.

The rest want answers about the walkers, what's causing it, and shit like that so Jenner takes us back to the big room with the computers. I don't wanna know much about them, I like to know as little as I can, if I know too much it makes me paranoid. I'm happy living my life just trying to avoid them at all costs. He presses a few buttons and then says, "give me playback of ts-19."

"Playback of ts-19"

The big screen in front of us starts to show a video of a brain "few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner says. "Is that a brain?" Carl asks, "an extraordinary one...not that it matters in the end." Replies Jenner.

"Take us in for e.i.v" Jenner says. "Enhanced internal view" the video then zooms in. We watch as we get closer and closer into the brain until we see the neurons. "What are those lights?" Shane asks. "It's a person's life..experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you, the thing that makes you unique. And human." Explains Jenner.

"You don't make sense ever" Daryl says. "Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asks as he approaches Jenner. "Yes" Jenner says "or rather the playback of the vigil." We all watch the screen so interested in what Jenner is saying as well as the neurons. "This person died. Who?" Andrea asks "test subject 19. Someone who was bitten, and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process."

"Vi, scan forward to the first event."

"Scanning to first event."

It zooms back out and fasts forward. the brain stem begins to darken. "What is that?" Glenn asks "it invaded the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." The brain goes completely dark. They died. "Then death" Jenner whispers to himself. "Everything you ever were or ever will be..gone."

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asks "yes" her mother replies nodding. It's what happened to Jim, Amy, my brother, and possibly us one day too.

Andrea tries to blink back tears, but it just doesn't work "she lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori explains to Jenner who is looking at her with his brows furrowed together.

"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." Jenner says to Andrea. it is truly devastating, losing someone to this, watching them slowly lose their lives and then become the very monster that took it from them. "Scan to the second event!" Jenner shouts to vi as he walks away from Andrea.

"Scanning to second event."

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute...seven seconds."

The brain stem flickers back on. "It restarts the brain?" Lori asks. "No just the brain stem basically, it gets them up, and moving." Jenner says it just brings back the basic part like walking, biting, grabbing but not the human part. "But they're not alive?" Rick asks. Jenner walks back to rick pointing up to the screen "you tell me." Rick shakes his head "it's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." Then something goes straight through its brain. "God. What was that?" Carol asks, "he shot his patient in the head, didn't you?" Andrea asks.

"Vi power down the main screen and the workstations."

"Powering down main screen, and workstations"

The lights shut off. "You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asks as she walks towards Jenner. "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal" he doesn't know. No one does. There's not going to be a cure we're just going to have to suck it up and learn to live this way because life will never go back to what it used to be.

"Or the wrath of god?" Jacqui asks. "There is that." Maybe it was the wrath of God, or Mother Nature, or maybe our time was just up. Maybe human lives time was up, just like the dinosaurs. "Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere" in times like this when I know I'm destined to die, and I just want to go back. Maybe do something different, maybe it's my fault I'm stuck in this situation. Maybe I did something as a kid to deserve this. I wish I got bit in the early days, died, became one of the walkers in the city because this is hell. Trying to survive, but also keep some kind of normalcy was hell. I don't know what day it is, or the time I'm just going on day to day, an empty shell of the person I used to be. I'm no longer that bright lively person, and I know it. how can you when you're living through the apocalypse. I'm not truly happy I'll never be, not anymore, I don't think I can. No matter how many people I have around me, how many of those I love are around me, I'll always think about the people I left behind, my roommate, my brother, my granddad. They're all dead, they're lucky they got the easy way out. I wish I did too.

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asks. "There may be some. People like me." Jenner replies. "But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asks. "Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner explains. "So, it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying right?" We came here for no reason, we came for answers, and Jenner had none.

Andrea scoffs, we're all finally realizing this is not going to end. "Jesus" Jacqui mutters. "Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk..again" Daryl says as he leans himself against a cubicle "dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question but...that clock it's counting down. What happens at zero?" The clock is at 59 minutes. "The...basement generators they run out of fuel." He seems uncertain or as if he's lying. He's not telling us the full truth, and I know that. Jenner begins to walk around "and then?" Rick asks. Jenner doesn't answer he just walks away. "Vi what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asks.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."

-

I sit in the office I had claimed as my sleeping quarters the previous night. Facility wide decontamination. Decontamination, we're going to die. The doors won't open back up that's what Jenner said at the beginning, once they shut, they aren't opening back up. So, if we wanted to leave, we can't. We'll have to die. And I'm fine with it. I'm fine with dying, I'm not sure if I even want to live this life anymore.

The air conditioner has shut off.

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the thought of dying. If I died, I wouldn't have to do this anymore, I don't want to do this anymore.

The lights shut off next. There's not much time left. Am I convincing myself I'm ready to die or am I really ready to die. I don't really have an option anymore, do I? So, I shouldn't think about it. If I think about it, I'll panic, so I should just not think about it. If I don't think about it will be fast, without any struggle, or crying just death in a flash.

I can hear everyone in the hallways asking what's happening. They're probably talking to Jenner. I'm staying curled up on the couch, I'm not moving.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Come in" I say meekly.

The door opens, and in comes Glenn. "Come on" I look up at him brows furrowed. "I want to stay in here" he sighs "come on just..please come with me" I begrudgingly get up and follow Glenn into the big room where everyone else is. Everyone's confused, and scared.

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asks as he power walks after Jenner. "The system is dropping all the nonessential use of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule"

31 minutes 28 seconds.

Jenners got a bottle of alcohol in his hands which Daryl snatches from him. "It was that French" I furrow my brows "what?" Andrea asks "they were the last ones to hold out as far as I know while our people were bolting out the doors, and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jenner answers. He begins to walk father away from us "what happened?" Jacqui asks. "Same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice." Jenner explains. "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" Jenner says with a chuckle before turning back around. "Let me tell you-" Shane says trying to run after Jenner. Rick grabs at Shane "to hell with it Shane. I don't even care."

Rick turns towards his wife "Lori, grab our things, everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!" Rick shouts most of us start scattering when an alarm starts blaring "what's that?" Shane asks.

"30 minutes to decontamination" vi says.

Jenner walks over to a desk "doc, what's going on here!" Daryl shouts. "Everybody y'all heard Rick. Get your stuff, and let's go! Go now! Go!" Shouts Shane. Just when everyone was about to run out the door shuts.

"Did-did you just lock us in?!" Glenn stammered out. Jenner sits down not answering Glenn. "He just locked us in!" Glenn shouts fearfully. Everyone else begins to run back towards Jenner.

"Carl!"

"Mom!"

Daryl begins to run up to Jenner angrily. "You son of a bitch." Daryl barks as he sprints at Jenner. "Shane! Shane!" Rick shouts. Shane chases after Daryl "you locked us in here!" Shouts Daryl as he grabs onto Jenner. "No, stop don't!"

"You lying—"

"No, no, no, no!" Shane says as he pulls Daryl away. "Wait, no! No, don't do it." Shane and t-dog has to hold Daryl back as he angrily punches and tries to wiggle out of their grip. Rick marches up to Jenner "hey, Jenner, open that door now." Rick demands.

I'm leaning against one of the desks my face buried in my hands with my fingers spread so I can still see what's going on. "There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner replies. "We'll open the damn things!" Shouts Dale.

I can't talk, I won't talk to anyone if I do, I'll cry, and I'll change my mind on being okay with dying. "That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." Everyone else is stressing, carol especially she doesn't want her little girl to die this young. She wants Sophia to have a life, live a long life even during this mess. "It's better this way" Jenner says. Rick turns his head towards Jenner a little offended "what is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick says through his teeth as he walks closer to Jenner. Jenner doesn't answer just begin to type away at his computer. Shane begins to walk up. I guess he could see some tic in Rick because one second later he's shouting, "what happens in 28 minutes!"

Jenner stands up "you know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!" Jenner shouts in both Shane and ricks faces before sitting back down. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure—in a terrorist attack, for example H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out." Jenner explains. Rick walks over to Jenner "H.I.T.s?" Jenner doesn't want to explain so he shouts to vi "vi, define."

"H.I.T.S high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives, consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power, and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000, and 6,000 degrees, and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

"It sets the air on fire no pain." Jenner says. Carol is crying while holding her daughter close. "An end to sorrow, grief...regret......everything." Jenner whispers. He's right, this is the best way to die, death is almost instant. It's an end to all the grief, and sadness I've felt since the moment this thing started.

-

Daryl's throwing shit at the door trying to...I don't know break it? "Open the damn door!" Daryl shouts. I stare at my feet, what was there to live for anymore? "Out of my way!" Shouts Shane before he hurdles towards the door with an axe. It makes a noise similar to when you run your fingers nails down a chalk board. Blugh, it makes me want to puke. Both Daryl and Shane are pounding these pickaxes maybe regular axes I don't even know anymore. But they're just hitting, and hitting, and hitting, and all I want to do is curl into a tiny ball, and cry. My brain isn't working, and sound is starting to blur, fizzle out as I stare at my feet.

There was no need to live anymore, we were just going to be stuck in this mess of a world anyways. So why not die right now? Why does everyone but me want to get out? Is something wrong with me specifically? Am I just that fucked up in the head, that I don't want a second chance at life? I'm ready..but I'm not at the same time. Every time I convince myself I'm ready I just begin to think about what I could have in the future, but then I think about what I could've had, then I'm right back at the beginning. I don't want to live my life in constant fear of getting bitten, I don't want to live in the constant cycle of grief, and regret.

I'm not paying attention to anything that's happening. I'm ready, I'm ready. I keep telling myself that. I'm re-

"Come on, hey y/n he opened the door." Glenn snaps me out of the trance I was in. I shake my head "it's for the better" I whisper. Glenn furrows his eyebrows "what?" I let out a shaky breath "I-I don't want to live like this anymore Glenn, I want to stay" he shakes his head. "No, no I'm not leaving you here! I don't care I'm not leaving you here." He says I shake my head again. "I don't want to go" I whisper "I love you y/n, I can't just leave you here." I don't reply.

"Daryl!" He shouts waving him over. He runs over kneeling down next to me. "She doesn't want to leave, help me convince her to leave." Glenn whispers. I shake my head. I don't want to leave, I want to die. "We don' have time" Daryl says picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder. I kick and punch at Daryl begging him to let me stay but he doesn't do anything.

"Let me go Daryl" I cry "I want to stay."

We end up stopping at the door. "Hey, we've got four minutes left! Come on!" Shouts Glenn. "Daryl please, please, please. Leave me" I sob. "No, no, no m'not doin' that" he mutters. I can barely hear anything over my thoughts.

You need to stay. You need to stay. You need to stay. it was like a virus infecting my brain telling me that I needed to die.

Then we're running again. That's what snaps me out again. The only thing I notice is that dales, Andrea, and Jacqui are staying. If dales staying, I want to stay too, but Daryl won't let go. He's got a tight grip on me, that I can't wiggle out of.

We're going upstairs, and then we're on the top floor. I'm placed on the ground as Daryl, and Shane try to break through the windows. It won't work. This is a government building the windows are only able to break if there's an explosion. It won't break for axes, chairs, or gun fire.

"The glass won't break?!" Cries Sophia. "Rick, I have something that might help!" Carol says running up to Rick as she dug into the bag she held in her hands. "Carol, I don't think a nail files gonna do it." Carol ignores Shane's misogyny and continues to talk to Rick. "Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket." She says showing Rick a grenade.

Rick takes it from her, and everyone begins to take cover.

"Oh shi—"

Boom.

The windows broken. I'm still set on staying. I'm hoping Glenn, and Daryl will forget about me and leave me here. "Come on" Daryl's kneeled down next to me. I shake my head. "No, I want to die Daryl why can't you just let me die" I cry. "God dammit women ya can't just do this to me" he mutters before picking me back up and throwing me over his shoulder again. I'm being stupid, and stubborn I know, but why can't he just leave me here. I already said I want to die.

We're running towards the cars. Rick, and Shane shooting at walkers at the same time. The bomb definitely was bringing a bunch, so we had to hurry.

We make it to the cars unscathed. Daryl places me in the passenger side of his truck instead of the SUV I was originally in with Rick, and his family. We brace for impact.

3, 2, 1. Boom.

I think it's the most fire I've ever seen in my life. Jacqui's dead, but Dale, and Andrea made it out. Jacqui was a sweet lady. She cared for everyone even people who had wronged her. She didn't deserve to die, but she just ran out of hope. Hope, how can we have hope when we're going through this.

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@e1d0lonk3k @soul4death @furiousheartpoetry @silicone-bonez @nezukos-number1fan

[dannyo000]

This is the first part of my Rick fanfiction. Follow the character through their life and attraction to the taken sheriff.

Word count: 4.6k

Warning: Self harm; suicidal talk/mentions; angst; character death (not sure what else)

《•○●○•》

I yawned sitting in the main lab. Computers and gadgets surrounding me. I rubbed my eyes and stood up from the computer.

I froze when my eyes caught sight of our security cameras. There was a group of living people outside our heavily armed doors. I could see 2 guys arguing while everyone around them looked upset and worried, constantly glancing around, making sure no walkers were close.

"Come on, let's go. Let's get out of here. Let's go. Please." A man with a black t-shirt on and army pants begged the sheriff.

I hurried over to see how many people exactly the group was. I moved the camera over and saw it was quite a big group. I laughed and smiled, other living people.

The sheriff was the only one who noticed the camera move. He was trying to convince everyone that someone was inside. I grabbed my gun and looked around to make sure my dad was nowhere close by. Quickly, I made my way to the front of the building.

"Vi, open the main entrance door." I called out and slowly the door began sliding upwards.

"Hello?" I spoke, cocking my gun. "Anyone infected?"

"One of our group was but he didn't make it." The sheriff spoke, his gun also pointed towards me.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, looking around behind them. "What do u want?"

"A chance."

I nodded and uncocked my gun.

"Im going to have to have you all submit a blood test. My father would kill me if I didn't have you guys do it."

Not like he might already since I'm breaking our number one rule of not letting anyone in from the outside.

"We can do that."

"Grab all your things. Once this door closes it has to stay closed."

《•○●○•》

Everyone finally got into the building. I turned around and gulped, seeing my dad standing behind everyone.

"Vi, seal the main entrance! Kill the power up here." Dad spoke and crossed his arms with his brows raised as the door beeped and clanged.

I put my gun in the back of my jeans.

"Rick Grimes." The sheriff held his hand out to my dad.

He eyed his hand before shaking it with his own.

"Doctor Edwin Jenner. And my daughter Beatrice Jenner." He pulled me to his side.

I gave Rick a side smile and a wave. My dad pulls me and leads us to the elevator. We all fit in packed tightly.

"Your daughter always go around packing heat like that?" The guy with a crossbow asked referring to my gun.

"There was so many left around that I took it upon myself to learn how to use one. Took forever go convince my dad to learn." I laughed answering the question myself.

Rick laughed and smiled at me. Seeing him up close. He was honestly very attractive. And im not just saying that because he's the first guy I've seen since all hell broke loose in the labs.

We made it down to our zone and began walking towards the big room. Dad in the lead with me behind him a bit.

"Are we underground?" A lady with super short hair asked.

"Are you claustrophobic?" My dad replied back to her.

"A little."

"Try not to think about it." I shrugged looking back at her.

We walked in silence to the big room and began walking into it.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Dad speaks out.

The computers lit up, and then the florescentlights above turned on illuminating the whole room.

"Welcome to zone 5." I looked back at everyone before heading towards the middle of the room.

"Where is everybody?" Rick asked walking a bit faster than his group to catch up to us. "The other doctors, the staff?"

I sat down and looked at my lap.

"We're it." My dad sets his hand on my shoulder. "Its just us two here."

Rick slowly looked down defeated.

A brunette with long hair spoke up, "What about the person you were just talking to?"

"Vi?" I asked.

"Vi! Say hello to our guests." Dad outspoke. "Tell them welcome."

"Hello guests, welcome." The computer spoke through the speakers.

"Its just my dad and I. Im sorry." I frowned at everyone's devastated looks.

My dad clapped his hands together. "Shall we get started on those blood tests."

Everyone followed him out of the room and down the hall to a room with medical supplies. I listened while everyone introduced themselves, and then, while my dad took care of them, I pushed through the group and made my way to my room. It wasn't anything special. As soon as the world went to shit my dad rushed me to get here as soon as possible, and once I got here, there was no leaving.

My bed is in the corner of the room, it's enough for maybe two people. All white sheets and pillowcases. I have my suitcase sitting on the floor wide open with all my clothes in it. Well, what I could fit in it. Next to my bed a have a cart with wheels that I use as my nightstand, I have a desk lamp on it that I took from someone's desk and a picture of myself with my dad and mom.

I laid in bed and read a book for about an hour before heading out to see where everyone was. I heard laughing and cheering coming from the "dining room." I walked in and saw everyone drinking and eating food. My dad nodded to me in a way of greeting. I took a seat next to him and took a drink of his wine. He stood up and patted my shoulder before putting some dinner on a plate for me.

I sat quietly as everyone talked and laughed with each other. It made me feel awkward, and I could tell my dad felt the same way. We'd been alone for a little more than a month, and to have so many living people with us is overwhelming.

I glanced over at Rick as he sat with who I would assume is his wife and kid. He made eye contact with me before nodding and standing up, clinking his fork on his wine glass.

"Its seems we haven't thanked our hosts." He smiled at me and nodded his head to my dad.

I smiled back. Looking back down at my plate as I blocked out everyone's cheers.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc?" Shane began asking, "All the—the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

I froze and looked up at him. He looked between Dad and I waiting for an answer.

Rick got serious and glared at Shane, "We’re celebrating, Shane. Don’t need to do this now."

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we’re here, right? This was your move—supposed to find all the answers." Shane shakes his head and chuckles humorlessly, "Instead we- we found them. Found one man and his daughter, why?"

Shane looked at everyone in the room and it got quiet. Everyone began wondering the answer.

I swallowed the last of my spaghetti and glared at Shane, I didn't like him.

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?"

I scoffed at his reply and opened my mouth to speak but my dad beat me to it.

"No, many couldn’t face walking out the door. They….opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

I scratched at my wrists nonchalantly before quickly standing up and taking my plate to the sink. I quickly rushed out of the room and headed to my room. I sat on my bed and tried my best to calm myself down. It felt like hours before I felt okay again. I grabbed spare clothes and a towel before heading to the showers.

Few of the guys walked out with smiles on their faces, and I chuckled softly. I stepped into a stall and closed the glass door. Luckily, it has texture, so u can't see completely through. I stripped out of my clothes and tossed it out the door before turning the water on.

I washed myself and washed my hair before taking a seat on the floor of the shower. I grabbed my razor from the hidden spot between the stalls and cut at my thighs. The water that ran under the stall to the drain was red. I turned the water cold and sat under it with my knees to my chest. I shivered and started crying.

Ever since I watched my mom slowly turn into a walker, I've been falling apart. Recently, it's gotten worse. As the days dragged on with nothing new happening or being accomplished, I started giving up hope.

I gasped as the door to my stall was pulled open. I froze seeing Rick looking from me to the red water going down the drain.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I spoke as sternly as I could in my state, trying to keep myself covered in certain places.

"Shit! Im sorry. I saw the water and-and I needed to make sure nothing bad happened."

I gulped and looked away from him ashamed. Suddenly the water stopped and a towel is wrapped around me. I looked up at Rick and he helped me up off the floor.

"Where is the blood coming from?" He asked checking over my arms and face.

I scoffed, "You don't actually care Rick. You don't know me and you just met me."

"You're right I don't know you and we just met but that doesn't mean I don't care. You saved us earlier which means you cared about us and you didn't even know who we were. Now quit being stubborn and tell me where ur bleeding at."

I rolled my eyes and took a seat on a toilet seat, lifting my towel a tiny bit to still keep me covered but show him what I did. His face changed to guilt and maybe sadness? I rolled my eyes.

"I assume you have never seen someone hurt themselves."

He shook his head, "Yes but not like this."

"I've been locked in here for over a month. No one to talk to except my dad and that's when he doesn't ignore me."

"Does he know about this."

"He knows. This isn't my first rodeo."

I got up and walked over to the cabinets, grabbing some gauze, wipes and bandages I put in there for times like this. Walking back to the bench I cleaned my thigh up and put bandages on the small cuts before wrapping my thighs with the gauze. I looked up at Rick.

"Im perfectly fine. You can go now." I fiddled with my towel and he blushed and nodded before making his way out the showers.

I pulled on my undergarments, then an oversized shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I towel dried my hair and threw it in the corner of the bathroom. I walked out into the hall and made my way to the big room. My dad sat at one of the computers looking over the blood samples from everyone. He looked over at me and smiled.

"Whats up honey?" He asked as I took a seat next to him.

"Just figured I would see how you were doing thats all." I shrugged and laid my head on his shoulder looking at all the data.

I sat up at the sound of footsteps walking towards us. Rick came walking in holding a wine bottle which I could see was half full.

"Hows the blood?" He asked.

"No suprises." My dad replied back beginning to pack his papers and binders up.

I turned in my seat to look up at Rick , who stood next to me now. I could easily tell he was tipsy on the verge of drunk.

He wiped his mouth, "I came to thank the both of you."

"You did." My dad spoke and we glanced at each other confused.

He was smiling at us before he suddenly stumbled back a bit and slid down the side of the computer desk. I gasped and tried to steady him, but he was too far away from me. He sat on the ground, leaning up against the desk.

"You alright Rick?" I asked him getting down on my knees next to him, gently taking the wine from him which thankfully he let me.

"You don't know what it's like." He laughs a little and looks to the side away from where I am. "You don't know what it's like out there." He got serious, his head resting against the desk behind him. "You may think you do. But you dont."

I get up off the floor and sit back in my chair, looking over at my dad with the same guilt ridden look on his face that I have.

"We'd have died out there. It was only a matter of time. There's too many of those things." He pauses for a second, his eyes getting glossy. "My-my boy.. My-my wife, I never- I never told them what I really thought. I never even hinted, just-."

He closes his eyes. "Just kept it in."

"Kept it in and kept us moving you know?" He began getting a little hysterical.

"It'll all be okay." My dad promised. Rick stared at him, "It'll be okay."

Rick stayed where he was for quite some time. I stayed with him while my dad put his things away before heading to bed. I stared at Rick before standing up.

"Let's get you to bed."

I reached down and helped him up, throwing his arm over my shoulder to keep him from falling or running into something. He was quiet the whole walk to his room. I let him go once he was outside the door.

"Pretty sure everyone is in bed so rest well." I smiled and turned around to walk to my room.

《•○●○•》

I smiled at everyone as we ate breakfast. Carl was absolutely adorable. Even though I wasn't super close to everyone, I still felt like I was part of the family. I smiled bigger seeing Rick walking towards us. Definitely hungover. Not gonna lie he looked pretty cute.

"Are you hungover?" Carl asked and glanced at his mom tryna not laugh. "Mom said you'd be."

Rick smiled at his son and nodded as he took a seat. "Mom is right."

Lori ripped pieces of her bacon and put a piece in her mouth, "Mom has that annoying habit."

She glanced at Rick and he looked down.

"Eggs powdered but I do 'em good." T-dog announced, walking towards us with a plate of eggs, dishing some out to Glen who looked way worse than Rick.

Shane walked into the room and sat down with scratches on his neck.

"Must've done it in my sleep."

"Never seen you do that before." Rick said.

"Me neither." Shane shook his head, "Not like me at all."

Shane stared at Lori and she looked over at him before looking down at her plate. I furrowed my brows at their weird body language towards eachother.

In came my dad, "Morning."

Shane replied "Hey doc."

"Doctor I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing- but you're going to anyways." My dad interrupted Dale.

His back was to us all as he got himself a coffee.

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea spoke.

My dad itched his nose as he turned around, looking at everyone. "Follow me." He nodded towards the door and made his way out it, everyone got up from the table. I quickly rushed after him, knowing exactly what he was doing.

"Dad."

He kept walking.

"Dad!"

He continued to ignore me. He walked down the ramp to his main computer, pressing a fre buttons before speaking.

"Give me playback of TS-19."

'Playback of TS-19.'

The giant screen in front of us loaded to a picture of the scan of a human brain.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few."

I stare at the screen as everything around me suddenly disappeared.

The screen changes to a side view. The imagine begins to zoom in. The image becomes more and more detailed. You could see the inside of the brain. Bright blue threads of energy racing around. The detail zooms in until the threads become closer and pulses of light can be seen sparking throughout the brain.

"What are those lights?" Shane asked

"It’s a person’s life—experiences, memories. It’s everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you—the thing that makes you unique and human." My dad informed them.

"You ever gonna make sense?" Daryl asked.

Dad looks to me to speak "Those are synapses. Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

I turned away from the screen as he fast forwarded to the end. I closed my eyes and covered my ears not wanting to see or hear anything that's about to be done.

My dad rubbed my back as a way to tell me it's okay now. I looked at everyone and took a deep breath.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but…that clock—it’s counting down. What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators—they run out of fuel."

I furrow my brows and look at my dad confused. He wouldn't look at me.

"And then what?" I asked him and he ignored me, walking out of the room.

Rick watches him in disbelief as he walks out the room.

"VI, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asked the computer

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi warned us.

Most Everyone ran out of the room to who knows where because I went after my dad. I checked a few rooms before finding him in my mom's office looking at a picture of all 3 of us smiling and happy.

"Did you ever think to tell me what was going to happen?" I asked him hurt.

"No, I figured we would both just go out quick and painless." He stood up from the desk.

"I think I deserved a choice to choose what I want for myself. This wasn't up to you!" I shouted at him.

"Im what I think is best for you! You saw the way your mom died. You wanna go out like that?!" He shouted back, slamming his hands on the desk.

I went to speak but the air shut off and shortly after the power shut off. I stormed out of the room followed by my dad. Dale and Lori were in the hallway and spotted us.

"Why is the air off?" Carol asked walking out of her shared room with Sophia.

"And the lights in our room?" Lori asked.

I see Daryl poke his head out his door, "Whats going on? Why is everything turned off?"

My dad began walking past everyone, "Energy use is prioritizing itself."

"Air isn't a priority? Or lights?" Daryl scoffed.

"Its not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down." We all followed him to the big room.

"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Daryl began to get angry, storming towards my dad faster.

But Dad ignores him of course.

"Hey, man, I’m talking to you. What do you mean it’s shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

I see Shane, T-dog, Glen and Rick came into the room. All looking pissed off as ever.

"You’d be surprised." I shook my head sadly looking at Daryl.

Lori and Carol stayed close to the rooms exit with their kids while the rest of us were in the center of the big room. I pushed through everyone and sat down at my dad's computer, looking through everything to find a way to stop the building from exploding. Anything.

A loud alarm sounds in the room, and I look up at the stopwatch on the screen, seeing only 30 minutes till we are all dust and ash. I mumbled to myself, ignoring everyone's yelling and crying. I stood up and threw the computer mouse across the room. I stressfully raked my fingers through my hair.

"We need to go now." I spoke and walked towards the doors only for them to shut as a few of us got close.

I flipped around and noticed my dad by the security lock keypad by his desk. I felt my heart break seeing him take a seat in his desk. Completely calm and okay with locking everyone in the room. He opens up his video recording and begins speaking to it.

Rick and my dad are arguing with each other. I couldn't hear the words over the sound of my rapid heartbeat. I'm scared. I'm not ready to die. Before, I thought I was, but I'm not. Meeting Rick and his group has made me want to keep surviving, keep living.

"You know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don’t want getting out! Ever!" My dad was up from his seat shouting louder.

"Open the damn door!" Daryl growled.

Shane runs at the door with a fire axe. T-Dog tosses one to Daryl. He catches it and they both try to destroy the door.

"You should’ve left them alone it would have been so much easier." Dad gritted his teeth at me.

"Easier for who? They would have died!" I cried out.

"And they are still going to, just not painfully. You guys know what’s out there. A short brutal life and an agonizing death." My dad turns to Andrea who is sat on the floor leaning against one of the computer desks, "Your—your sister—what was her name?"

"Amy."

"Amy. You know what this does. You’ve seen it. Is that what you really want for your wife and son?" He looks to Rick.

Rick gets in my dad's face, "I don't want this!"

He walks to Shane and they converse for a second.

"The doors are built to withstand a rocket launcher." I sighed walking over to them.

"Yeah well his face ain't!" Daryl shouted as he ran towards my dad with an axe.

"Woah, woah!" Everyone blocked Daryl and grabbed the axe from him.

I stood back and listened to how hysterical my dad has become. Suddenly I hear a gun cock. Shane angrily comes towards my dad and I.

"Shane, no!"

"Get out of my way Rick! Stay out of my way"

Shane comes towards me pointing the gun at my forehead. I raise my hands and keep my face normal as I stared him in his crazed eyes.

"Open that door! Or I'm gonna blow her head off, do you hear me?!" He looks to my dad.

"Brother, brother. This is not the way we do things." Rick reminded Shane, trying to calm him down. Rick kept glancing between Shane and my 'tough exterior look. "We will never get out of here."

"Shane you listen to him." Lori speaks up.

"Its too late." Shane mutters.

"She dies, we all-"

Shane interrupts Rick by yelling and pushing the gun further into my forehead before turning away to the side away from my dad and I and shooting the computers over and over all while still yelling. I cower away and go running into Rick's arms in a matter of seconds after the gun is out of my face. I finally broke down. He gently rubs my back for a second and then hands me over to his wife, who rubs her hand up and down my arm as it's wrapped around me.

Rick struggles as he takes the gun from Shane. Shane was going crazy. Once he got the gun from him, he had to hit him with the butt of it and elbows his shoulder, dropping him to the ground.

I hid my face against Lori's shoulder, crying quietly as Rick began talking to my dad again.

"She was dying. It should’ve been me on that table. I wouldn’t have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein. Me? I’m just… Edwin Jenner. She could’ve done something about this. Not me."

She never would have wanted him to do this to me let alone to a group of people who didn't ask for it.

"Your wife didn’t have a choice. You do. That’s—that’s all we want—a choice, a chance." Rick begged.

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori tightened her grip on both Carl and I.

My dad made eye contact with me before looking down.

"I told you topside’s locked down. I can’t open those." He walks over to a keypad and scans his card and types in some numbers, opening the doors to the big room.

Everyone began rushing to the exit. I shooed Lori off as I stayed in the room.

"There’s your chance, take it."

"I’m grateful."

"The day will come when you won't be." My dad warned.

My dad takes Rick's hand and shakes it before pulling him close and whispering in his ear. I ran over and dragged Rick away, pushing him towards the doors.

"You staying?" He asked me quietly.

"I need to say goodbye but I will be right behind you." I smiled softly and nodded at the door.

"We've got 4 minutes let's go!" Glen shouted.

I walked over to my dad and let out a sob. He let a few tears drop from his eyes.

"I can't stay here dad." I shook my head and gave him a sad smile.

"I know baby I know. It's not your time yet." He pulls me into a hug. "But it is mine." He kisses the top of my head.

I pull back and wiped my eyes.

"I love you dad."

"I love you too sweetie, don't forget it." He kisses my forehead and gently pushes me towards the exit.

I nodded and ran quickly out of the room. I ran as fast as I can to my bedroom to grab my family picture, then made my way to the front of the building. The walls shook with a loud explosion. I got to the front and noticed they had broken a window. Everyone was running towards the vehicles, but Rick, he stood waiting. He smiled when he saw me and climbed out the window first before helping me out, making sure I didn't cut myself on any of the glass. Both of us came running to the R.V. I got on before Rick, and he quickly took a seat in the driver's seat, grabbing the keys that were left sitting on the dash.

I stood behind him watching the building. Suddenly, Dale and Andrea slowly came out of the exit. They began running towards us. Rick began honking the horn.

"Get down!" I yelled and Andrea and Dale took cover behind a small barricade of sandbags.

Not but 2 seconds later did we all get down, and the loudest explosion happened. Heat from it hit all of us. I quickly stood up to see the aftermath of it. I began sobbing, knowing my dad was gone. I quickly moved to the couch and sat on it with my head facing down. I feel the vehicle began to drive away. With one last look out the window, I saw black smoke and an unrecognizable building.

[fict1onallyobsessed]

Onyx

Vi X Reader

Words - no idea it’s 3:09 am

Summary - You have been running Undercity for years. Onyx was your alias, but once the person you once loved comes back, you could feel the pressure on your shoulders.

The eerie quietness of your past home made the shivers emit on your skin. It made everything more real. The visions of Vander laying under the debris of the concrete made you flinch.

It was nothing but an abandoned monument as of currently. The explosion had created a chain reaction. After Vander's death, the Undercity was chaos. Everybody had heard about Claggor's, Mylo's, Vander's and your death. Vi was nowhere to be found, so everyone assumed she was dead too.

Rumours spread quickly. Powder was no longer Powder, but Jinx, working for the one person her group of friends was always against.

The visions of waking up under piles of bricks and concrete, all alone made you that more determined to get out alive. When you did, the place was a ruin, fire everywhere, the slight smell of the shimmer under the now broken bridge only getting stronger as you inhaled.

You had no way of telling how long you'd been unconscious, only wondering where Vi and Powder was, but the more you looked around, seeing the dead bodies of your friends, the less hope you had at finding them.

So, now you were here. Six years later. A black mask on your face, in the place that started your nightmares. Nobody knew you were you. Nobody but one person knew you were alive.

"I told you coming here was a mistake."

You didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"What are you doing here, Ekko?"

After the explosion, you took care of each other. Although he was much younger than you, he was your rock. The person who kept you afloat all the years that Vi was missing. You loved him like a brother, and you'd do anything to protect him. After all the loss you endured, you couldn't lose him too.

"I've got some news. But you have to promise me not to freak out."

Only now you turned, looking at him with the mask still over your face. He thought the mask had covered your being to the point of no return. You weren't the Y/N he used to know, and he wasn't sure that letting people call you the Onyx was a great idea.

"Your girlfriend is back in town."

You laughed, turning back around and walking through the pieces of rubble that have been laying there for six years.

"Bullshit."

He didn't laugh, watching as you jumped onto a broken wall. After everything happened, and you basically lost everything, you bought it upon yourself to teach yourself how to survive alone. So, learning how to jump walls and fight was something that had to be done.

You didn't need a fancy hoverboard like Ekko and the rest of the firelights to get places. You jumped from building to building, away from Enforcers if need be. In a way, Ekko now saw a bit of Vi in you. You could now effortlessly climb walls without a breath lost; You wrapped your hands like Vi used to, but you didn't wrap your forearms like she did, only up to your wrists.

"I'm serious. Pink hair, tattoos, wrapped arms."

You tensed your jaw. Could it really be Vi? You didn't respond as you looked down on Ekko, eyes threatening to release an emotion you learn to hide.

"I don't care if you go to her as Y/N, or if you go to her as Onyx, but she's in the tree right now."

"She's here?!" You dropped from your spot on the wall, already walking home. "You spoke to her?"

Ekko followed with a smile, knowing that you'll freeze once you'll see her. You froze at the mere thought of her, so it was without question that you'd freeze once you'd see her alive.

"I did, and by her reaction she didn't know you're alive. Just...Be careful. She's with an enforcer."

You hummed, rushing towards the tree. It wasn't far if you took shortcuts, over and under buildings. Ekko took the easier route, with his flying board obviously.

He ended up there first. You and him stood on the foot on the free, looking up at the place. The people of firelight where used to seeing you around, even though they didn't know your real identity, they smiled at you when they past you, which you'd always return with a nod.

You were about to climb up, but Ekko grabbed your bicep and stopped you.

"Take the mask off."

You looked at him, mind racing with questions if you really should. You didn't even have a plan, you just wanted to see her.

Without saying anything, you moved away from his grip and started walking up the stairs to the room. When you got there, you hesitated at the door. You hadn't been this scared since Vander died and you ended up alone.

With a deep breath, you grabbed the door handle, not even nothing to take off the mask. The second the door opened, her eyes snapped to yours. The mask was still over your face, but your eyes showed enough emotion for Vi to know it was you.

It was silent as you walked in, eyes on each other as if the other just rose from the dead. Well...Theoretically you both did. Both of you thought the other was dead, for six years.

"You're alive." She breathed, looking you over like she'd usually do after a bad fight six years ago.

Her hair was even brighter than you remember it, more dishevelled than before, but equally as pretty. The scars on her face, specifically the one on her lip, where so much more visible. Her gaze however, never faltered, not now not ever.

"So are you." You spoke, the mask muffling your words. Momentarily you let your body relax. Her voice was much deeper, the jacket she wore barely covered the muscles on her biceps.

But you gained muscle too, after teaching yourself how to fight, and basically becoming the Onyx, you had a fair share of scars too, the one across your eye was the only visible as of now.

"I know whatever I say won't change anything, but please let me explain."

You were suddenly thankful for the mask on your face. It covered any vulnerability you had to show, everything you've been hiding for six years threatening to spill in front of her. Your chin trembled, and you looked away to the floor before inhaling deeply.

"Fine."

She slowly walked closer to you, carefully to see any signs that you didn't want her closer to her, but when you gave none, she continued walking forwards.

"When I saw Claggor and Mylo on the floor I panicked and tried to find Vander. When I saw him...dead...I knew that if I saw you too I wouldn't be able to handle it. I wanted to look for you, but then Powder...so I ran off. I didn't want to see you like the others."

"That doesn't explain why you disappeared for six years." You snapped. She stood right in front of you. She was always taller, but now you felt like the taller one. You didn't hold a grudge against her for not looking for you. You were mad because she left without saying anything for six years to anyone.

"I was arrested. I was going back for Powder when the Enforcer got me. I couldn't fight back. I-"

There were tears in her eyes. All words she planned on telling you since Ekko told her you were alive went out the window. She just started down at your eyes, since it was the only part of your face that was visible, and bought her hand up to your covered cheek.

"I'm so sorry (Y/N)." She whispered as a tear made it way down her cheek. You tried your best to contain your tears, but it was difficult after she placed her hand on your face. You craved her touch for years, and now you finally had it, you didn't know what to do. You didn't even have the strength to correct her. Nobody called you (Y/N), even Ekko rarely did.

You finally decided to lean into her palm, letting her bring her other hand to unclick the mask from your face. It dropped to the ground and you finally looked up at her. She cupped your face, lifting it slightly up so she could look into your eyes.

"I missed you so much."

She wrapped her arms around your neck and bought your head closer to her chest, kissing the top of your head before you returned the favour. Enveloping her waist, you nuzzled your face into the crook of her neck before releasing the sobs you've been keeping in for years.

"I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." You shook your head.

You felt so safe with her arms wrapped around you again. And in all honestly, she felt the same about you. She's lost so much, and there was no way she'd lose you again.

The knock to the door made you both pull away, you instantly grabbing the mask on the floor before putting it on. Vi furrowed her eyebrows, unfamiliar with why you covered your face.

"Sorry to interrupt, but enforcer girl is getting groggy."

Ekko opened the door, watching you adjust the mask on your face before you met gazes with Vi. You pointed to the door with your head, making her follow you to the place where Ekko was keeping Caitlyn. For the first time in six years, you felt vulnerable, not the strong Onyx you usually are.

You stood in the door as Ekko took off the blindfold on her head. She instantly started to tell him that it was her idea and that she was the one dragging Vi into 'this mess'. Up until she noticed you.

"Oh...Onyx. Erm..."

You chuckled from under your mask, pushing your shoulder off the door frame and walking closer to her. She backed away as much as she could. Vi was surprised at how people reacted to your presence. They were either really happy (the firelights), or scared (Caitlyn).

Ekko chuckled, pointing to you as their gazes returned to your interaction with Caitlyn. You took out a knife from your pocket, crouching in front of her. You hated enforcers, but this one seemed bearable.

With a quick move, you reached behind her and cut the ropes that kept her bound to the pole. She stared confused, rubbing her wrists where the ropes had previously been.

"Thanks...?"

You nodded, walking back outside into the fresh air. You could breathe freely for once, or so it felt like you could. While Ekko was telling Caitlyn on everything, Vi was only there to convince her to trust him and you.

"How am I supposed to trust her?! The Onyx, really?!" Caitlyn whispered through clenched teeth. You could hear her, but you only smiled. Prison wasn't a place where rumours spread, so Vi not knowing who the Onyx was wasn't a surprise to you.

"Who's the fucking Onyx?" Vi asked, looking over at you, who had your back to her, for an explanation.

Ekko laughed. "The Onyx runs these streets. Nobody knows their true identity. Nobody knows who they are or where they came from." He dramatically motioned with his hands, kinda making a joke out of everything. He smiled at the confused girl, who only followed him outside to where you were standing.

"Ready to go, Onyx?" He pat your back, making sure to let Vi hear as he spoke to you. You only chuckled, walking side by side with him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So..." Vi sat next to you in the bar. Everyone needed undercity's drinks after a long day. You sat at one of the tables with the four of them, listening as Ekko spoke to Caitlyn on what drinks were the best.

"...Do I have to call you Onyx now?"

"You do," You smirked, looking away from her gaze but knowing there was a smile on her lips. You didn't speak after that, listening as Caitlyn asked very obvious questions, and watching as Ekko sighed and explained.

"Why do you wear the mask?"

Your head turned to Vi. She sat with her back against the chair, one arm on her thigh while the other rested on the table.

"Nobody knows that (Y/N) is alive, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Why?"

You were about to respond but Ekko interrupted.

"You know how many people are out to find out her real identity? If she comes out the dark now, it'll be obvious Onyx was her. Plus, she's got a pretty big fanbase. Everyone in firelight loves her."

You laughed, shaking your head as Ekko spoke about you as if you weren't there. He went back to talking with Caitlyn, while Vi looked over back at you.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Shoot."

"I don't want to lose you again." She said, only loud enough for you to hear. Your heart stopped for a second. You didn't either, but there was boundaries established with you being Onyx. You couldn't leave the Undercity to fend for itself without someone to keep peace.

"But I have to find my sister."

You hummed, expecting what she was getting at but wanting to hear it from her.

"Will you help?"

"You want a meeting with your sister? No problem. I can go see her right now. But it won't be pretty."

"No? Why?"

"Because Jinx is one of the people after me."

THE END

[moldymacrodose]

COGS AND PIECES - CH 1/12 || Jinx x fem!reader / OC

Next Chapter ->

Writing Masterlist ->

a/n: Hi, everyone! I’ve started writing this small thing for my own self-indulgence, but maybe it will help someone else’s hangover after finishing Arcane.

The story takes place before the events of Arcane. Vi is still locked up, Progress Day never happened etc. Maybe the show never actually takes place in this AU. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I decided to nickname the female love interest Cogs, because it felt weird to write in 2nd person and I personally find it really annoying to read when “y/n” appears every second line. This is also the first story I’ve ever decided to share anywhere, English is not my first language, yada, yada, yada. Be kind to me, people.

I have exactly 12 parts planned out so far in varying lenghts. I’m guessing that the finished story will be around 10000 words.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1 - Babysitter

The request was an unexpected one.

After all, Cogs was just a lowly mechanic running around and fixing any messes thrown at her. She was merely a pawn in the grand scheme of things and yet there was Silco calling her into his office. The first thought on her mind was 'my days are numbered', but as it turned out she would survive to live yet another one in this garbage dump. Although, given the nature of her new task, she still worried how much time she had before she would wind up being blown to pieces or bleeding out on the ground.

Everyone knew about the big explosion in Jinx's laboratory. The girl fucked up big time with one of her inventions and blew up one of the propeller wings her den was built on. This in turn caused more explosives to fall down the canyon and... Let's say that it was hard to find a person in the Undercity who didn't feel the ground shake under their feet in that moment.

Following Silco's footsteps and stepping into that place was a nerve-wracking experience for the young mechanic. With one of her hands, she was playing with the screws and bolts that she had stashed away in the pockets of her leather apron. The other one was tightly gripping the handle of her beat up toolbox.

"Jinx", Silco exclaimed. No answer, no sound, no nothing. "Jinx!"

"Who's this?", a voice suddenly resounded from behind Cogs' shoulder. She knew who it belonged to and it slightly terrified her. Cogs turned around and took a step back. She stood face to face with the blue-haired girl she has heard so much about.

They've never interacted. The only impressions Cogs gained of her boss's daughter were from stories told at bars and countless hours spent trying to fix some of Jinx's trinkets that ended up in the standard arsenal of Silco's underlings.

Cogs has only ever seen Jinx in passing, at a safe distance, never so up-close and personal. As far as she could tell, this moment must've been when the blue-haired maniac became aware of Cogs' existence, a fact that made every hair on her neck stand up in fear. Jinx knowing about you put a target on your back. Or at least that’s what everybody said.

"Your new assistant. She'll help you clean up this mess and make sure that nothing of the sorts takes place ever again.", Silco explained calmly wagging his finger at the blown-up workshop behind him. The expression of curiosity on Jinx's face quickly turned into one of annoyance.

"I don't need a babysitter!", she barked throwing her hands up in the air.

"Your last stunt suggested quite the contrary. Prove to me that you can be responsible, and we can discuss this again." The man started to walk away at a leisurely pace. "For the time being, you two should acquaint yourselves." And just like that, he was gone.

Jinx furrowed her brows at Cogs. She felt like she was shrinking under her gaze.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm just following orders", she mumbled. "I could..."

Before Cogs could finish her sentence, the girl scoffed at her and stormed off to the big table in the middle of the platform. Reluctantly, the mechanic followed her and stood a few meters behind. She looked around the place. It was gigantic and cluttered with all sorts of things, most of them piles of scrap metal and what people usually considered junk. Cogs understood that they were precious resources and admired the amounts she accumulated. If it wasn't for the disturbing neon graffiti covering almost every surface and that creepy doll slouching on the couch, she would've felt somewhat at home.

"Don't touch anything", Jinx told her as she plopped down on a stool at her workbench. Cogs turned to her. The mechanic tried to keep a friendly expression on her face. It was hard to not show her discomfort with this whole situation.

"Can I sit down somewhere? I've got a few things I have to tinker with today."

"There", Jinx pointed at a free spot on the floor.

Cogs nodded slowly and sat herself down. The light wasn't the greatest, but she'd have to manage. She opened the toolbox and took out the few mechanical pieces she had hiden in there. She decided to tinker a bit with the gun that she was supposed to fix. She inspected all the parts separately and when the gun was partially assembled, but there was still something wrong with the loading mechanism. She couldn't find the culprit. Cogs sighed in frustration and dropped the part she was working on the floor. She rubbed her face and unknowingly smeared oil all over her forehead and cheeks.

"What is wrong with you? Why don't you want to work?", she groaned forgetting where she was for a moment. She must've spent at least two hours on this and she had nothing to go off from. She knew which part was malfunctioning and that was pretty much it.

"That's mine", Jinx said with a hint of surprise in her voice.

Cogs' eyes snapped open. She didn't notice Jinx sneaking up next to her and picking up the part she was tinkering with seconds ago. She was turning it around in her fingers.

"That's... yours?", Cogs repeated furrowing her brows in confusion.

"I made it. This is my design."

"Oh, yeah. Of course," Cogs said slightly embarrassed and scratched the back of her neck. "The loading mechanism is fucked. I have no idea what happened."

The blue-haired girl picked up a screwdriver and jammed it into the part. Cogs' eyes widened at this, but she didn't dare to say anything.

"There. It should work now."

Cogs assembled the gun and tested whether the parts were moving the way they were intended to. The gun was indeed working again.

"This is... how did you...? I mean, of course you knew what wrong with it right away." She shook her head in bewilderment. She looked up at Jinx and for the first time today actually looked her in the eyes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome..." Jinx cocked her head to side, clearly trying to remember what the mechanic's name was.

"Cogs. People call me Cogs"

"You're welcome, Cogs", Jinx finished the sentence and then skipped away back to her own projects.

Something about the way she said her name made Cogs feel pleasant in a way.

Next Chapter ->

Writing Masterlist ->

[peakyswritings]

Sham || Part III

Tommy Shelby x OC

Part I Part II Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Final Part

Whatever they had before France was over the moment he stepped on that train. Whatever they had after Grace left for New York was consolation. And their marriage was a sham.

Summary: As Helen seems to have made up her mind, Tommy realises that he needs to try everything to keep her by his side, even though it means wearing his heart on his sleeve, showing his most vulnerable side.

Warnings: drinking, smoking, mentions of sex (nothing too graphic), angst

A/N: Hi guys! I’m sorry it took so long to update, but university is killing me. Also, this series is set between season three and four, so after Arthur, John, Michael and Polly return from jail, but before the Italians. Basically during the time (I think it was two years, but I’m not sure) Tommy doesn’t speak with his family

The gif is not mine, credits to the owner

The Garrison, 1919

The pub was full, that night. A crowd of men gathered around the stools, while a group of veterans drunkenly sang some old song in the back of the room.

It was odd, Tommy didn’t allow singing. Everybody knew and nobody would’ve dared to go against his will. But the thing didn’t seem to bother him at all as he leaned against the counter, smiling at something Grace had said.

“Are you upset?” Polly asked her, resting with her back against the chair of the small table they were sitting at.

“Why would I?”

“Because something happened, between you. Before France.”

Helen quickly turned her head toward the older woman, glancing at her. “How do you know?”

“I always know.” She replied with a knowing smirk as she took a drag from her cigarette.

“It doesn’t matter now.” She shook her head, finishing the drink in her glass. “It’s over.”

And it was, at least for Tommy; but Helen couldn’t forget the night before he left for the front, the night that changed everything, that put an end to their friendship, leaving space for something more.

She could still remember how his soft lips felt against hers, how his hands started roaming on her body, how his hot breath tingled down her neck as he whispered in her ear.

She could still remember trembling hands taking off each other’s clothes, eager eyes silently asking for permission.

He was sweet, and gentle, and caring. He made her feel loved and wanted. And beautiful.

My girlfriend, he called her, as he ran his hand through her hair while she laid with her head on his chest.

But he didn’t call her his girlfriend, when he came back, nor did he act like she was. Tommy seemed to have shut the door on what happened that night, without the slightest explanation. Too many things were left unsaid.

Maybe he didn’t mean that, when he said he loved her. Maybe he just said that because he was sure that he would die in the trenches. He had said a lot of things. Maybe he didn’t even remember them.

And now there he was, whispering something in that barmaid’s ear, looking at her the same way he used to look at Helen.

“You’re in love with him.”

Polly took one last drag before putting out her cigarette, watching as the girl in front of her avoided her eyes. She took her silence as a confirmation. “I pity you. You deserve better.”

Deep down, Helen knew she did. She deserved better than lies, than secrets, than unspoken words and unanswered letters.

Four years. He had been four years in France, and all she received was one letter. She wrote to him at least once a month, when she worked in the field hospital, under the sympathetic gaze of the other nurses, who were sure that “her soldier” was probably dead.

But that one letter gave her hope. Hope for a better future, for a better life, for better times.

And she was ashamed to admit that she still kept it. It was in her favourite book, under the flower he had given her in the summer of 1908. Helen opened that book again, when she went home, as if she wanted to make sure that they were still there. She carefully placed the pressed daisy on her desk, before taking the sheet of paper in her hand. She had almost forgot how messy Tommy’s handwriting was.

She could feel all the suffering and confusion that transpired from his words. He had probably written it quickly, his mind working faster than his hand.

My Dear Helen,

I’ve been underground for three months now. I can’t even remember how the sun feels on my face, or how the stars look. Do you remember when we used to count them, sitting in Charlie’s Yard? It seems like another life. I miss those moments.

I miss throwing rocks at your window just to spend the whole night talking on your rooftop, drinking that awful beer that I stole from Polly’s cabinet. Do you remember when your father almost caught us?

And I miss your perfume, some nights I can almost smell it. Do you still wear it?

I love you, Helen. I should have been braver, I should have told you years ago.

I’m going to marry you. If I ever come back, I’m marrying you. Do you remember our deal? I haven’t forgotten about it. I’ll make us happy. I promise.

Arrow House, 1925

“A divorce is out of the question, Helen.” Tommy argued with a firm voice, slamming his empty glass on the table.

“I’m not asking you, Thomas. I’m telling you.”

“You marry a Shelby, you stay fucking married.” He spat out, pointing a finger at her.

“But you can’t force me to stay here, can you?”

“I wouldn’t be so certain.” He retorted, raising his eyebrows, the slight tremble in his voice leaking out his nervousness.

“What are you going to do? Lock me in a room, put one of your men to guard the door?” She scoffed.

He clenched his jaw, walking closer to her. “Listen,” he stopped in front of her, his expression softening as she looked up at him. “You’re the only family I have left. John, Arthur, Polly… they hate me, Helen. I need you by my side.”

He desperately took her face in his hands, looking her in the eyes. “I need you.”

Helen brought her hands on his wrists, slowly caressing them. She closed her eyes for a moment, before moving his hands away. “Stop.” She desperately whispered, knowing that it wouldn’t take much for her to give up, again.

“What about Charlie? He needs you-”

“Don’t bring Charlie into this.” She harshly interrupted him. “Don’t use him as a weapon.”

“Then do it for me. Stay for me.”

“Tommy, I’m asking you not to be selfish. Just for once.” She begged him, holding back her tears. “If you can’t love me, let me go.”

He stayed silent for a while, just staring at her, and he found himself wondering how he could mess up so much that the one person whom he had cared about all of his life thought that he didn’t love her.

“Look,” he said all of a sudden, quickly walking towards one of the cabinets. He took a box out of it and placed it on the desk.

Helen took a few steps forward, looking at the box with a confused look on her face as he opened it. It was full of letters. He grabbed a few of them, lightly shaking them in front of him.

“All the letters you sent me when I was in France.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn’t utter a word. Until then, she had even doubted that he had ever read them.

“I still keep all of them. I’ve read them at least a thousand times. I know them all by heart.” He stated, putting them back in the box. “And this,” he continued, taking a wrinkled picture out of the same container. “This is what stopped me from giving up in the trenches.”

She blinked a few times. It was her picture. She didn’t even know he had it.

“When the night came and all I could hear was noise, and cries and screams, I looked at this.”

Tommy looked her right in the eyes, not caring about how vulnerable he looked as he openly talked to her about his feelings for her for the first time in years. “And when you told me you had volunteered as a nurse, that you were going to be sent off to some godforsaken place… Do you have any idea of how fucking scared I was? Of the terror I felt when your letters were late to arrive?” He raised his voice, as if that dread was rising to the surface again after being pushed back for too long.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She whispered, feeling her eyes watering.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“It would.”

He sighed, letting himself fall on the chair. He rested with his elbows on his knees, staring at the wall.

“I’m losing you, aren’t I?” He asked her as a bitter, sad smile made its way on his face. “For real, this time.”

Helen shook her head, the lump in her throat growing as that new awareness made it even harder to say the words she wanted to say.

“You already lost me.”

-

Tag list: @arwyn-the-cyrptic-bisexural @iamngoclinh08 @lilywinchesterlove @fandom-puff @capitanostella @caelys @lucillethings @peakyxtommy @queenofkings1212 @lyarr24

“Sham” tag list: @kitsnoopy @myjumper @onlydeadcells @ohshititsfenharel @literishdegree99 @a-dorkier-book-keeper @pulisvertz @notalxx @queenofkings1212 @leftdonuteaglepeach @inocrazeh @julietsecretjournal @lyarr24 @sleepyisy @ivegotparticulartaste

[sergeantbuckybarnes]

the moment i knew // bucky barnes

Summary: When Bucky comes back from a mission with Natasha you can’t help but think something has changed between you and start doubting if this relationship is something Bucky really wants.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: insecure reader, jealousy, miscommunication, curse words, angst, fluff, drunk reader 

A/N: As always, please remember English is not my first language. I tried my best to write this, please don’t be rude. Also, thanks to @pistachoz​ for helping me and proofreading this!!

divider by @firefly-graphics​

You had never considered yourself as someone jealous, you believed it was an awful feeling, irrational. But you couldn't help the sense of discomfiture forming in the pit of your stomach when there was evidence for you to feel that way. Bucky has been on a mission with Natasha for two weeks, this was the first time the two were sent alone. In the beginning, you didn’t worry about it because- you were aware of the past your boyfriend and the black widow shared, but Bucky had always assured you that it was in the past and he didn't see her as anything more than a friend. He made sure to show you every day how in love he was with you, and you didn’t remember the last time you felt this happy with someone. 

But this mission changed everything. 

Bucky usually calls you to check on you, even if he’s busy he always finds a way to text or call you, but this time he hadn’t even answered you. You got worried at first, millions of thoughts of what could have happened racing in your mind, but when Natasha contacted Tony to assure him they were okay, all you could wonder was why hadn't your boyfriend contacted you.

You gave him the deficit of the doubt and tried not to take his avoidance the wrong way but when they came back, he went straight to his room without even sparing a glance your way. What game was he playing at? What has happened on that mission to make your boyfriend act this way?

“You should go to talk to him,” Wanda advised  “I’m sure there’s a reason for him acting this way”

“Oh yeah? And what is it?” you scoffed. 

You were in Wanda’s bedroom. She was your best friend, always supporting you when you needed it, this time was no different.

“Y/N, you know Bucky. He’s not that kind of guy. I’m sure there’s a reason. Stop being stubborn and go to talk to him”

You looked at her; she was giving you the “mom look”. You sighed. You loved Bucky, and you didn’t want to lose him. There had to be a reason, right? You knew he loved you, he even said he wanted to grow old and have a future with you. 

You get up from Wanda’s bed. “You’re right,” You walked out of your friend’s bedroom and made your way to your boyfriend’s room. When you reached the corner of his hallway, you hear a door opening and people laughing. You put your head out the corner and you saw Natasha on the doorstep of your boyfriend’s bedroom. He was there too. Shirtless. She laughed at something he said and you didn’t catch and she smacked his right arm in a joking way. He was laughing too. You had never seen your boyfriend laugh that way with anyone other than you. Or Steve. And maybe Sam. But with Natasha? Never. Also, he hated when people invaded his personal space and touched him without permission.

You huffed as tears pricked at the back of your eyes and made your way back to your friend’s bedroom. Once there, you closed the door and slid to the floor. All the anger you once had turning bitterly into sadness, poisoning every fiber in your being. Tears started to blossom on your eyes and sliding through your cheeks. Wanda ran towards you and embraced you in her arms, asking what had happened, stroking your hair, in an attempt of calming you.

Sobbing you tried to tell her what you saw, the more you cried the hard it was talking and breathing for you. Wanda got you up from the floor and walked you to her bed, she cupped your face in her hands and wiped the tears from your cheeks.

“Breath, Y/N” She breathed in and on with you until you calmed a little. 

You didn’t understand how he could do this to you. After all the things you had done for him. All the panic attacks, all the nightmares, and the sleepless nights you shared with him. And that is the way he repaid you? Going on your back with your friend?

And Nat, you had trusted her, the countless times you had told her things you would say to anyone, she was your friend and she assured she felt nothing for him anymore. She assured what happened between her and Bucky was done. You feel betrayed by two of the most important people in your life. 

If he wasn’t happy with you, he could have told you. Yes, it would have hurt, but not much hurt as the one you were feeling right now.

“Are you sure that was what you saw? Maybe you misinterpreted it,” Wanda was trying to help, knowing Bucky and Natasha, it was impossible to think they would do such a thing to you.

“Wanda, if you saw Vis shirtless laughing at night with another woman in his bedroom, and this woman is touching him, what would you think? How can you misinterpret that?” It wasn’t about being open-minded, permissive, or controlling. It was about respect. There are things you don’t do if you are in a relationship with someone. He was out a lot of nights with Sam and Steve, and you were okay with that. You didn’t mind if he has girl-friends. But what you saw today and his attitude towards you in the last two weeks was something you could not ignore.

Wanda paused for a moment, thinking about what to say to you to make you feel better “Well…if they’re really doing this to you, then fuck them. They don’t deserve you,” your friend stated, “this defines them, but not you.” 

You sniffled wiping your nose with the back of your hand. Your eyes were red from crying and they started to hurt. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

You usually slept with Bucky, either you went to his room or he came to yours. But tonight that wasn’t an option. Possibly, that wouldn’t be an option anymore.

“Of course,” She wasn’t going to leave you alone when you were going through such a hard time. You had always been there for her, and now she was going to be there for you.

When Pietro died, and she came to the Avengers Compound you were the first one to came and check up on her, you didn’t ask her how she was feeling, that was a stupid and obvious question, you just stay there with her, offering your support. And from that moment she knew you were going to be a very important part of her life.

“Now try to sleep. If you don’t rest, you won’t heal”

The next day came sooner than you would have wanted to. The sunlight coming through the windows made you rub your eyes. 

“How did you sleep?” Wanda was lying next to you, she had just woken up a few seconds before you. 

“Not my best night,” You sat up in bed and rubbed your temples. 

You felt her hand on your shoulder and you looked at her “I’m with you, okay?” You’re not alone,” She gave you a reassuring smile.

You were going to have to face Bucky and Natasha, and you weren’t prepared for that. When you reached the kitchen, you could hear their laughs again. The same laughs from last night. You took a deep breath and pursed your lips, trying to suppress the tears that were starting to form in your eyes. Not again. Not in front of them.

When your boyfriend noticed your presence, he turned his attention towards you, a wide smile spread on his face. “Hey, doll” He started to make his way to you “I went to your room last night but you weren’t there” Was he seriously like he didn’t ignore you for two weeks and yesterday acted like you didn’t exist? What a scoundrel.

He hovered over you, trying to wrap his arms around you but you dodged him. A confused look formed on his face. “I slept with Wanda. You seemed very busy, didn’t want to bother you.” You didn’t let him answer, just made your wake to the counter to pour two coffee mugs, one for you and one for your best friend.

Everybody was wearing confused looks at your behavior, you had never acted this way towards Bucky; you were quite the opposite, always hugging, kissing, or holding hands. Your PDA was something that drove the team crazy sometimes, but they were happy for you. Acting like this set alarms on everybody’s head. What the hell happened between you two?

Bucky tried to talk to you the whole day but managed to slip through his fingers. He wanted an explanation. He wanted to know what he had done to make you act this way towards him. You two were fine when he left on that mission, so what had happened in that two weeks he was gone?

He finally found his chance when he caught you alone in the gym. This time you wouldn’t walk away.  

“Y/N,” his voice was firm but not harsh, “Can we talk, please?”

“I don’t have time” You kept punching the bag and ignoring his presence. That’s it. He had enough. He grabbed your arm and turned you to him. Face to face.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Let me go” You pointed at your grabbed arm with your eyes and he let you go. 

Bucky huffed. “What did I do?”

You looked at him perplexed. Was he being serious?  “Are you really asking me that?”

“Y/N, honestly. I don’t know what I did.”

“You didn’t call, and neither answered any of my texts.”

“Really? That’s why you are mad? My phone broke and I couldn’t contact you”

You chuckled. What a lame excuse. “Of course. What about Nat then? You could have asked for her phone”

He frowned. “I told her to text to you, to tell you I was okay”

“Well, she didn’t”

“Maybe she forgot. I don’t know. It’s not much of a deal”

You were starting to get exasperated. He didn’t get it. 

“You know what, Bucky? Fuck you!” That was the last thing you said to him before you left the gym. Wanda was right. He didn’t deserve you, and he didn’t deserve your tears either. 

You didn’t hear of Bucky for the rest of the day. Now you were sitting in your bed, a framed picture of the two of you in your hands. Your eyes started burning. You missed him. You didn’t want to miss him. You two were happy, didn’t you? You didn’t understand what you had done wrong. 

You hear a knock on your door, you put the frame down on your bed and wiped your eyes. “Come in” 

The door of your bedroom opened to let you see who you used to consider a friend. What was she doing here?

“Get out” you got up from bed abruptly and pointed at the door. Natasha looked at you shocked. 

“Y/N, w-” you didn’t let her finish her sentence. 

“OUT. NOW.” But she didn’t budge. She just stayed there, looking at you. You finally got tired and pushed her out of your bedroom.

“Y/N, Calm down. I just wanna talk to you” You didn’t answer, closing the door in her face. 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.” you called the AI system.

“Yes? Miss Y/N.”

“I don’t want anyone in my room. Don’t let anyone in. Only Wanda.”

“Alright. Miss Y/N. Do you want me to let Miss Maximoff know that you want to see her?”

“Yes, please.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y did as you told, and a few minutes later you hear a knock at your door. “Y/N. It’s me” You opened the door and crashed into the arms of your best friend. 

“Let’s get out of here. Please get me out of here.” The redhead looked at you worried.

“What happened?” she questioned.

“I don't wanna talk about it now. I just- I can’t be here”

Wanda looked at you sympathetically and wiped the tears off your face the same way she did last night. 

“Okay,” she nodded “Let’s get out. We are going to have a girls day”

When you came back to the compound it was late at night. You were stumbling, arm slugged on Wanda’s neck. You had drunk a little too much, trying to cop-out. Your mother always said that being drunk is the anesthesia of the fools.

“Best night EVER!” you yelled, raising your fist to the air.

Wanda hushed you. You were going to wake up the rest of the team. “Wan, you're so hot.” you keep babbling, Wanda laughed, she was going to make sure to remind you this night tomorrow. “I love you soooooo much”

“I love you too, Y/N”

“You’re like my best best friend” 

“You drank too much, Y/N. You need to sleep”

You shook your head, “No, no Imma go talk to him”

Wanda dragged to your best. “You’re going to sleep. You can talk to Bucky tomorrow”

“NOW!”

“Now you’re going to sleep” Wanda stated, getting tired of your drunk state. You looked at her, she looked so intimidating, you nodded like a scared puppy and did as she told. The moment your body hit your bed you fell asleep. “You’ll thank me tomorrow,” She said before stepping out of your room.

Sunlight streams golden through the window. You raised your heavy eyelids halfway only for them to fall shut again. The aching in your skull ebbs and flows like a cold tide. Now you understand why they call it a hangover. Perhaps some painkillers would help.

You hear a knock on your door, you groaned and wrapped yourself in your duvet, hoping that whoever was out the door would just go away. But the knock persists, louder each time.

Once on your feet the room swayed, almost causing you to lose balance and you reached for the wall. This feeling made you think you had to have fun last night but somehow it wasn’t in your memory.

The reflection on the mirror in the wall shows no sign of the glamour girl of last night. You rubbed your eyes before opening the door. 

“Wanda told me you would need this,” Bucky handed some painkillers and a glass of water in his hands. The cracking in your head and your dry mouth were too strong to ignore them and to kick out your boyfriend. You took the pill from his hand and threw them in your mouth followed by the glass of water.

“Fun night?” he asked, entering the room and closing the door.

“You could say that”

Bucky sat in your bed as you went into the bathroom. “You never handed alcohol well,” he chuckled under his breath.

“Bucky, what do you want?” you asked tiredly

“You and I have a pending conversation”

You sighed. “Now it’s not the best moment. Besides, I look awful”

“You always look beautiful,” he said softly, walking carefully to you, he brushed a piece of hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear.

“Don't do this. Not now.” you closed your eyes, melting under his touch.

“Don’t do what? Telling you how I feel?”

“What happened between you and Nat?” you finally asked, the alcohol remaining in your system putting your defenses down. You didn’t want to fight. You just wanted to know. What Natasha had that you hadn’t?

Your question didn’t startle Bucky, not shocked him either. Little you know, Wanda had gone to his room last night, after she made sure you were asleep to question Bucky about his behavior towards you on the last few weeks. She cared for you, so much. You were like a sister to her, and she wouldn’t let anyone take advantage of you or make you feel like you weren’t worthy.

“There’s nothing between me and Natasha. I promise.” he said sincerely “I’m in love with you.”

“Then why didn’t you call or text me? Two weeks, Bucky. I hadn't heard from you in two weeks. You had me worried. We always call and text each other when we are on a mission”

“I told you, my phone broke. I told Nat to text you, I don’t know why she didn’t do it. I’m sorry”

You looked down. Bucky has never lied to you, and he has never given you a motive to mistrust him.

“What about the day you came? You ignored me the whole day”

“I was tired. All I wanted was to clean up and rest.”

“With Natasha?” you inquired

He looked at you confused, not knowing what you were talking about. “I went to your room that night, Natasha was there and you were shirtless”

He rubbed his face. “Oh, Y/N. That doesn’t mean what you think,” you looked at him, waiting for him to explain himself  “She just came to check up on me, I just came out of the shower, she didn’t even come in”

“You were laughing, though.”

“And you think that means I cheat on you? You always laugh with Steve and Sam. And I don’t think you are cheating on me with them. Why is Natasha any different?”

“Because-” you were ashamed of showing your insecurities to Bucky. “she had you first.” You couldn’t help to compare yourself to your friend, she was prettier, she was smart. She was everything you were not.

“And you have me now,” he cupped your face “And I want you forever.”

Bucky bent down and closed the gap between you. Finally feeling his lips in yours and- oh god. How have you missed the way he feels. He kissed you with so much gentleness like you were going to break any minute, but that wasn’t what you wanted right now; you needed to let him know that you were there, you wanted to feel every part of his body against yours and reassure yourself that he wasn’t going anywhere. You knotted your fists in his shirt, pulling him closer if that was even possible. He groaned, his hands firmly on your hips and lips agape. When you pulled away you smiled and touched his lips with your fingers. “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too, doll,” he said circling his arms around you making his way towards your bed until you hit the mattress, his body hovering over yours. “We have so much time to make up to.” 

[avvail]

I love your writing. Could you continue the snippet #18, the one with the hero turning vigilante and villain finds them?

writing snippet #18: part two

tw: knife wounds, blood

They kept their hands steady as they applied the bandage to Vigilante’s knife wound, their gloved hands still stained with their blood. They’d manage to stop the bleeding with the supplies they’d bought, but they knew they could only treat them properly once they got back inside the city walls.

Vigilante groaned and stirred in their restless sleep, and Villain would have to quietly shush them back into their dreamless slumber again. It was as they secured the bandages did Vigilante fully awaken, blinking back the hazy spots clouding their vision.

“Vi...Villain?”

The villain noticed their slightly dazed, but panicked effort to sit themself up, and quickly pushed them back down against the blankets before they could reopen their wound.

“Now, now, we don’t want you hurting yourself again, now do we?” They playfully teased, yet there was still a trace of concern in their tone. “Lay back down, you’re safe.”

Vigilante briefly squeezed their eyes shut, and groaned. The colour was drained from their face, the bags under their eyes more prominent. They seemed to lazily grope their sides, looking for their weapons, twisting away from the villain as if they were going to hurt them. Their nostrils flared, and their eyes snapped open once more.

“We’re in dangerous territory,” the vigilante huffed, squirming weakly in their position on the ground. “We need to...g-get out of…”

Their throat tightened painfully, and Villain smoothed a gentle hand through their hair, calming their erratic heartbeat. “You rest now. You’re safe here. I’ve got my men covering every ounce of this place.”

Vigilante’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly at those words, but they were no stranger to the lingering paranoia in those eyes. Considering how long they had spent out here, Villain didn’t blame them for being so shaken up. Once they realised they were still stroking through the former-heroes hair, they quickly pulled away, and sighed through their nose.

“I’m going to get you out of here, Hero,” they whispered, voice firmer than they would’ve preferred. Like they were certain. “I’ve spent so long looking for you that it would be stupid to give up now.”

Vigilante’s eye seemed to twitch, and something dangerous passed through their eyes. Eyes that were once so full of determination and passion, now tinted with the experience of this world.

“You’re going to be arrested and thrown out here yourself,” Vigilante hissed, their brows tightening with a deep frown. “You think the government won’t notice if somebody outside the walls gets in?”

Villain scoffed under their breath, sly smile creeping up their lips. “Have you forgotten who I am? If I want something done, it’ll happen.”

“They keep record of everybody who’s banished here,” Vigilante pressed, their forehead still slick with a cold sweat. Their body was aching from their journey across the northern lands, and their side was throbbing painfully with each intake of breath. Villain noticed the slight stutter in their chest. “They banished Civilian. If you reinstall that name onto the system, they’ll just come and find me again. And you’ll get hurt too.”

Villain couldn’t help but send a playful wink their way. “It’s nice to know a part of you still cares.”

Vigilante quickly looked away, their expression tightening.

“I have connections. I can get you a new identity, name, face, everything,” Villain continued, leaning in a little closer so they were a hair's breadth away from Vigilante’s face. The former hero seemed to freeze in anticipation, their brain still trying to get used to Villain’s old ways. They hadn’t seen them in so many years, after all.

Villain gently caressed a small scar on Vigilante’s cheek, who hesitantly moved away before they could do anything else. The villain chuckled under their breath, and hooked their arms under their knees and shoulders, scooping them up into their chest. Vigilante huffed as their wound burned, but they relaxed slightly moments later.

“Are you ready to go home?” Villain whispered, heading towards the open door. The chilly air met Vigilante’s face, and it almost felt different. It felt calm. It felt free.

Vigilante, for the first time in years, cracked a small, weak smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

part three

[lonely-lost-soul]

Under the Floorboards Pt. V

(Technoblade X Reader): Pt. I, Pt. II, Pt. III, Pt. IIII, Pt. V, Pt. VI

    Alright so maybe you spoke too soon; the four of you were going to do great things, minus Tommy. Technoblade had finally agreed to let you join Tommy and him on an adventure into L’manberg. The plan was to crash their festival, and ultimately attempt to get Tommy’s discs back from Dream and Tubbo. You expected your first adventure into the country to be fun, if anything you’d get to steal some shit, what you didn’t expect was to be thrown in the middle of a public dispute. 

Clearly, you underestimated what ‘getting the discs back’ actually entailed. 

You and Technoblade were back to back swords drawn, surrounded by about thirty people in the ruin of what was once deemed a community house. Technoblade never would’ve agreed to let you come if he thought the confrontation with Dream was going to be this serious, he assumed they’d watch from afar. If things got to dicey Tommy and him would rush in and he’d have you stay behind to watch from afar. If only he could’ve predicted someone blowing up a random building would cause such turmoil. 

Nothing could ever come up Technoblade.

   “Yah know when you first invited me out to partake in a festival for some reason I didn’t expect to be attacked by like thirty people.” You chirped a hesitant smile on your face as Technoblade made a confused sound. 

   “You definitely should’ve expected it,” Technoblade grumbled, barely taking his eyes off of Tommy and Tubbo’s argument. You watched Techno’s back but you couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the boys conversation as well. As much as your heart broke for the two war-torn children, you had your alliance first and foremost with your boyfriend. You also couldn’t help but feel this conversation should be happening privately but here they were airing things out seemingly for the first time in front of everybody. Speaking of your boyfriend, your attention was drawn back to him as he caught Tommy’s attention, “be very careful what your decision is here Tommy.” 

You narrowed your eyes and took a step in front of Technoblade, he made his classic ‘heh’ sound as you did so. You felt his hand grip your forearm and tighten trying to hold you back in case you wanted to do something stupid. 

   “Tommy, come home with us.” You held out your hand to him, the one Technoblade didn’t have a hold of obviously. “Phil’s waiting for us, we’ll get your discs back together as we planned.” The smile on your face could part the cloudiest of days and it broke Tommy’s heart, she had given him something that he hadn’t had since the war with Dream began.

A home. 

   “(Y/N),” That’s the first time he used your name, the first time you weren’t just Ms Blade. It broke your heart and you whimpered a little bit, “thank you for everything you’ve done for me. But I can’t go back with you and Technoblade. I don’t like what I’ve become, this isn’t me. I’m sorry. I hope one day we can be friends again. Tubbo give Dream my disc.” You leaned back into Technoblade in disbelief, Tommy had just betrayed Technoblade right before your very eyes. The man who gave Tommy the clothes on his back and a place to stay when no one else would. Weapons to help him fight against Dream when everyone else abandoned him, even though they all treated Technoblade as a weapon he still went out of his way to help Tommy. Your hands clenched into fists at your side as Dream let out a roaring laugh collecting the disc from Tubbo. He called the two children stupid right to their face and no matter how angry you were with them that was harsh, it’s like everyone in this country forgets that they are children. Children fuck up, it’s how they learn and it’s in their nature why does no one here understand that. You looked up at Techno your eyebrows furrowed and you pressed your lips tight but he didn’t take his eyes off Dream, he had different priorities in mind. 

Protecting you from the Dreamon if anything went south. 

Dream continued to mock and criticize the people of L’manberg before turning to you and Technoblade. The mask he wore may hide his facial expressions, but it couldn’t mask the unadulterated glee in his voice. Technoblade pulled you behind him as Dream stepped closer to the both of you, you felt a growl rumble in Technoblade’s chest, 

   “That’s close enough.” 

   “Down boy.” Dream mused, holding up his hands to show faux innocence. “I have no issues with the both of you. Tomorrow, with your help, Technoblade and woman.”  

   “(Y/N).”

   “Don’t tell him your name.” Technoblade gaped at you and you only could huff in frustration, 

   “Better than just being called woman! Plus Tommy already said it.”  

With an eye-roll Dream continued his speech, “With the help of Technoblade and (Y/N) L’manberg is going to be a crater. We’re blowing it sky-high.” Dream turned over to face Tubbo once again, “I had to pretend to be friends with you, to get the dumb disk back! I don't care about you. I'm not your friend. Okay? I cared about getting the disk back, and I got the disk back. I got it back. And that's-that's- that's the only thing that really matters. You can't even run your nation right. RANBOO IS A TRAITOR. ONE OF YOUR MOST TRUSTED FRIENDS.”

Your eyes widened as you spotted another child looking horrified, it was the half enderman from the butcher gang. You’re adopting him next.

   “NO, IT IS TRUE. READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. There's his memory book. He was meeting with Techno and Tommy and told them EVERYTHING. The proof’s all his own memories! He writes it down! You can't even run your own nation correctly Tubbo. Listen. Tubbo, you, I mean you, ... L'Manberg is weaker than it's ever been, and it's because of you! You have- you have destroyed everything. You have ruined your friendships. You have ruined L'Manberg's allies. You have just-you are a horrible president Tubbo.” Dream continued as Tubbo looked sick to his stomach, you felt just as nauseous.

   “YEAH, YOU SUCK TUBBO!”

   “TECHNOBLADE!” 

   “What?” He flinched at your tone, “he’s right!” 

   “They’re children,” You tried to argue but Dream cut you off by stepping in between you and Technoblade. Your pulse skyrocketed as you were separated, and you made sure an ender pearl was at the ready. Tommy looked at the both fo you nervously, but there was a spark of hope in his eyes when you defended Tubbo. Tommy turned over to Tubbo who honestly looked just as shocked that a partner of Technoblade’s would defend him, espeically considering he had tried to kill her a few days prior. Tommy had hope that he wasn’t completely dead to you.

   “Techno. Got any withers?” You watched a sickening smile spread across Techno’s lips he picked at his nails. 

   “I got a few.” 

   “Good. Then I’ll see you all tomorrow when the L’manberg loses its last cannon life,” Dream announced before disappearing into the wind. The citizens turned to face you and Technoblade, he only had to utter a single word:

   “Run,” Before both of you pearled away from the wreckage of the community house. 

Technoblade scooped you up in his arms as he made his way through the Nether portal back to his base. He was much faster than you were and you didn’t fight him on wanting to make a quick getaway. You both were silent on the way back to his base, bottom line was you didn’t know how you felt about what just went down. On one hand, destruction was your middle name and you weren’t going to oppose blowing a government to smithereens with your boyfriend.  

Nothing could be more romantic than that. 

Yet at the same time, unlike Technoblade, you felt the guilt eat away at you. These were people’s homes, and lives you’d be destroying tomorrow. Most of the citizens you had no affiliation with, which you were grateful for, but those you did you almost couldn’t justify blowing the country up. Tommy was by all accounts dead to Technoblade and by that extent you as well. Still, you didn’t want to see him physically dead, it wasn’t his fault he got corrupted by the government and a homeless teletubby.

You were starting to sound like Technoblade now too.  

You made a sound of distress and Techno glanced down at your form, his face flushed as you nuzzled your nose against his neck. 

   “You okay princess?” 

   “No…” You answered with a sigh, you reached out and twirled a strand of his pink hair through your fingers. “Tommy’s gone, we’re going to blow up a country tomorrow. I feel bad for the people we’re gonna leave homeless. So, no I’m not okay bubs.” The socially awkward man winced a little as he battled with what to say to you, he tends to forget you both aren’t the same person. For as much as both of you agree, you were still different from him, you had more empathy than he could ever wish to have. 

   “You don’t have to come.”  

He watched a frown appear on your face as you pulled away from him. You clicked your tongue in distaste, a sure sign that you were about to pick a fight with the blood god. You were one opponent he could never seem to defeat. That did not come out the way he intended. 

Time to backtrack before he got his ass handed to him. 

   “What I mean is, you have no affiliation with L’manberg. You have no prior issues you need to settle with them so technically you can stay home tomorrow, no one would blame you. You’d be safer away from the explosions, I’d feel better with you at home.”

   “That way you’d only have to worry about Phil tomorrow right?” 

   “Well, that’s part of it,” He stated bluntly, never one to be dishonest. “He has only one life and he’s going to want to fight, he has a lot to avenge. The government drove his eldest son mad, enough that Phil had to kill him. He’s one of my oldest friends, I wanna look out for him and protect him.” You couldn’t help but sigh softly at his response, you brushed your thumb across his cheek fondly. 

   “You’re wrong.” 

   “Eh?”

   “I do have something I want to fight for, I want to fight for what I believe is right. Let’s face it Techno the way everyone’s treating those children is sick. Dream manipulated Tommy and used Tubbo to get what he wanted from him. I know you did what you thought was right for Tommy but he’s a product of a war-torn country, they all are. Now, that doesn’t excuse his betrayal but… did he even know what the right thing to do was in this situation, does he even truly know what peace is? I want to fight to protect those kids. They deserve to know peace, true peace away from bloodshed and war. If I can I want to give them that.” You watched Technoblade’s jaw tighten, “I’m going with you tomorrow but I’m not going to kill the children.” 

   “I don’t think I can ever forgive Tommy.” He sighed adjusting his grip on you a sure sign he was nervous, “but I love you.” Techno kissed you once again, it was long and tender you watched as the apples of his cheeks turn red after you both pulled away. He took a breath, “You’re unstoppable and you’ve never stopped me before so I won’t do the same for you. Just stay safe. Please. You need to come home with me tomorrow I won’t settle for anything else.” 

   “I will. I promise.” You pressed a light kiss to his cheek, and he hummed gently in response. “I love you Technoblade, I’ll fight beside you. Till the end of the line.”

   “Till the end of the line,” He repeated as you both approached the snow-covered house to convene with Philza Minecraft himself.

~~~

Hi guys! Officially feeling a bit better, enough to get a small part out before I work on the next chapter. I hope you like it, thanks so much for reading and your amazing feedback. Also, thanks so much for your kind words and well wishes! Also, also, If anyone ever makes fanart of this story (I doubt it would happen) please tag me and let me know. I love to make art myself and always wanna support other artists! Thanks Again!

[katwriteswitcherthings]

Title: Vi Moxt Miirik (Chapter Four - Also on AO3)

Prompt: Wuv: A Special Performance

Pairing: Geralt & Jaskier

Rating: T

Warnings: None

A direct continuation of yesterday's prompt. In which we see that Jaskier is very wordy and also completely misconstruing Geralt's intentions.

Summary:

Our favorite lovable Bard is a little more than he let's Geralt know. Follow them through the years as he learns to let down his walls and show Geralt how beautiful he really is.

Chapter Four

Jaskier was nervous. Jaskier was never nervous before a performance.

This, however, was no normal performance.

He had never hated his profession more than he did right now, as he was leading Geralt into the Narakort. The good news was that everybody who was anybody was asleep (including his current patron, the Duke of Carreras who had hired him for tonight and tomorrow's performances) as they made their way through the relatively empty noontime halls.

He forced his hand steady as he unlocked the door and ushered in his Witcher, who had been silent since they left the cheap tavern across town.

Geralt stood there, just inside the doorway, looking every bit uncomfortable and out of place as he did the first time they had shared a room, two decades ago and more. That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all.

"I'll have a bath drawn near the end of my performance, so don't startle the poor girls too badly." Jaskier started, keeping his voice light and airy, as he flitted about the room, hastily straightening up. He'd been here for almost a week now, at the whims of Duke Alexis to play for different meals, and for nights of dancing with his courtesans. Jaskier subtly as he could kept stealing glances at Geralt, who was still just standing by the door. He'd hoped that going back to routine would be for the best, but maybe...

Jaskier could feel his heart beating faster in his chest as he stepped in close to Geralt. He saw Geralt look up at him, finally meeting his eyes as they stood practically chest to chest. The question hung on his face, but Jaskier just took a deep breath. He saw Geralt's eyes dart down to his mouth and away, and he could only assume that he had licked his lips unconsciously; it was a terrible habit of his, but one that he had no hope of curbing.

"...I..." Jaskier lifted a hand to one of Geralt's armor's buckles, but he did not touch. Jaskier had seen the way Geralt had shrank away from touch, when they were first getting to know each other. He didn't want to ruin this. "...Can I help?" He asked, and Geralt did not look away. He nodded, slowly, hesitantly, after a moment.

This was something he'd never been allowed to do before except when Geralt was physically incapable of it.

Jaskier moved with quick precise movements, unbuckling each strap with careful precision. He knew the order the pieces came off in, and even how Geralt liked to stack the armor. He wasn't delicate, this was armor and it was difficult even for Geralt to get it off sometimes without a little bit of trouble, but there was a gentleness to his pulls and tugs that Jaskier knew Geralt did not receive from others.

In short order Jaskier was setting the last pieces into the pile, having stripped Geralt to nothing but the soft faded black shirt and well-worn leather pants he wore underneath it all. Jaskier would almost be willing to bet that he had done it nearly as fast as Geralt himself. When Geralt still did not say anything nor make any kind of effort to move, Jaskier just flitted over to one of the chairs sitting next to the window. He pulled it easily into the middle of the room.

"Now, sit on that chair please." He asked before going to dig through one of his bags for his comb and the little bag of hair products he had bought specifically for Geralt's hair. He heard Geralt stepping across the room and only turned back around when he was reasonably sure Geralt was already seated. Jaskier approached from his side, brandishing the comb even as he was very careful not to get into Geralt's blindspots.

"I'd like to get at your hair before it gets wet, and I know you won't wait on me to finish before you jump in." Jaskier asked again, starting to get a little concerned from the lack of any response from his Witcher. He would usually have gotten at least a few grunts of acknowledgement. 

He honestly wasn't sure if it was better or worse that Geralt was just nodding his agreement to his questions. Jaskier did not want to push into Geralt's personal space; that is the exact reason his Witcher hadn't wanted Jaskier to travel with him any more. Or, that's the only logical conclusion Jaskier could come up with.

Jaskier had messed up royally by following him out to the Dragon Fangs. He'd nearly gotten himself and Geralt both slain by some deep sea creature with no name and drowned under the surf as it came back in. To make matters worse, the creature's blade had managed to slice into his legs and back. 

Geralt had gotten tired of him and rescuing him, like everyone does, and was too good a man to tell Jaskier to his face. So he left, in that quiet unobtrusive way of his. And Jaskier let him. Because he was tired of forcing himself into other's company. It was the reason why he had gotten so fucking drunk after the Countess de Stael had dumped him; he never realized how much of a burden he was to those around him.

"Hrm?" Geralt's questioning hum broke Jaskier out of that awful line of thinking. He quickly blinked back the tears that were threatening to build. He couldn't afford them right now. That would drive Geralt away again for sure. "You can." Geralt granted and Jaskier got to work. He stood behind Geralt, humming idly as he worked the comb through his hair; gently breaking apart tangles with his fingers and comb, pulling twigs and other disgusting parts of things he didn't want to think too hard about. Geralt practically melted into the chair in front of him, the tension visibly draining as Jaskier took care of him.

Time lost all meaning as Jaskier worked patiently and carefully; it could have been minutes or he could have been standing behind his Witcher for hours. Finally though, he was able to run his fingers through it without catching. It would still need to be cleaned, of course, and the bath he'd send up later would take care of that. He'd shave his Witcher then as well.

"Alright there, dear heart?" Jaskier asked as he patted Geralt on the shoulder. The endearment just slipped out and Geralt either didn't hear it or chose not to draw attention to it because he just grumbled an agreement. "I'll be back in a few hours, then." Jaskier could hear an uptick in noise in the hallway and downstairs. The Duke would be summoning him shortly, without a doubt. Better to go ahead downstairs now, he thought as he set the comb and pouch on the little dresser before gathering up his lute. "I'll shave all that scruff off when I come back, if you'd like?"

"...I would..." Geralt answered, a little bit of wonder filling his voice. It sounded lovely. Jaskier smiled and gave him an elegant bow before heading out of his room. He had two more performances to give before he could run off with his Witcher again. But, oh, what a performance they would be! After all, he was performing for his favorite audience now.

[toomanyfandomssss]

His Girl - Five

Violet stood to the side as she watch Bellamy and Murphy target practicing. Murphy's knife fell to the ground after he failed to get it to stick in the tree.

"It's that damn kid always messing with my head," the dark haired boy said making the Violet roll her eyes and mutter a small "Sure" under her breath.

"He's not gonna last much longer, better start thinking of a new excuse," Bellamy slightly mocked before winding his arm back and throwing his axe hard enough for it to instill into the tree. Violet shamelessly admired how sexy the man looked. "That's how it's done" he said, voice full of arrogance.

Atom and another kid walked towards the three, "We searched a half-mile all directions. No sign of Trina or Pascal."

"Visit your special tree when you were out there?" Murphy teased making Violet tilt her head in confusion.

"Atom took his punishment. Let it go," Bellamy ordered.

"Bell what punishment? What did he do?" Violet asked, completely confused about what the hell was going on.

"Its nothing Vi, we'll talk about it later," the boy replied making her huff in annoyance. Noticing this, Bellamy walked over to her and wrapped his arm around her waist pulling her into him. "I promise baby," he whispered in her ear sending a shiver down her spine and making her skin flush. He smirked and kissed her cheek, turning his attention back to Atom who started talking again.

"Could be grounders," he suggested.

Murphy of course took a chance to continue his teasing, "Yeah, or they could be in pound town. Lot of that going on recently," he smirked.

Ignoring Murphy, Atom continued "Look, Bellamy people are scared," he gestured to the loud moaning of the boy in the drop ship, "And that dying kid he's not helping the morale around here."

"Morale will go up when I find them more food," Bellamy reassured.

The other boy spoke up, "And what do we say when they ask about Trina and Pascal?"

"For now? Nothing. Its possible they're just lost. We'll keep an eye out for them when we go hunting later."

Murphy had his eyes on the drop ship, "Lets go kill something."

Stopping him from walking any further Bellamy responded, "You're not going. I need you to stay here. If the grounders are circling we can't leave this place unprotected.

Murphy nodded, "Fine. Somebody better tell goggle boy to keep it shut." Violet watched him fail again at getting his knife in the tree before making her way to the drop ship.

✶✶✶

Violet followed Wells up the ladder hearing Monty say, "That would be a firm no." Immediately going to Jasper's side she looked down at the poor boy.

Clarke sighed, "My mother would know what to do."

"How's he doing?" Wells asked making the blonde immediately snap at him.

"How does it look like he's doing Wells?" she glared up at him.

"I'm just trying to help," he defended himself.

Violet and Finn glanced at each other noting the awkward tension between the two.

Clarke spoke up, "You wanna help? Hold him down." she motioned to Jasper.

Violet, Finn and Wells all did as told. Monty looked at Clarke worriedly, "I'm not gonna like this am I?"

✶✶✶

Violet, Monty, Finn,  and Wells, were all holding a screaming Jasper down as Clarke tried to heal his wound.

"Hold him still! I need to cut away the infected flesh," Clarke yelled.

The door opened revealing an exasperated Octavia yelling "Stop it!" "You're killing him!" the tan girl said kneeling next to the boy.

"She's trying to save his life," Finn reassured the girl.

Unfortunately Bellamy had followed his sister to the room, "She can't"

Wells stood up and faced Bellamy, "Back off"

Clarke huffed, "We didn't drag him through miles of woods just to let him die."

"Kid's a goner. If you can't see that you're deluded." Bellamy so sweetly pointed out. "He's making people crazy."

"Sorry if Jasper's an inconvenience to you, but this isn't the ark. Down here every life matters."

"Take a look at him. He's a lost cause," the curly haired boy replied making his girlfriend scoff.

The room was silent for a moment before Clarke turned to Octavia. "Octavia, I've spent my whole life watching my mother heal people, if I say there's hope there's hope." Clarke tried to reassure the girl but was interrupted by the hot headed boy once more.

"This isn't about hope. Its about guts. You don't have the guts to make the hard choices. I do. He's been like this for three days, if he's not better by tomorrow, I'll kill him myself." He went towards the latter before turning back again, "Octavia, Vi, let's go."

His sister didn't even turn to look at him, "I'm staying here." The boy turned to his girlfriend with a raised brow. All she did was give him a disgusted look before turning back to the group, refusing to acknowledge him any more than that. Bellamy's face softened for a moment before nodding in understanding and distending down the ladder.

Monty interrupted the silence, "Power hungry, self serving, jackass. He doesn't care about anyone but himself." He glanced at Octavia and Violet, "No offence" Octavia just shook her head while Violet mumbled a "You're not wrong."

Finn agreed, "Yeah Bellamy is all that, but he also happens to be right."

✶✶✶

Violet caught up to Bellamy right before he left. "You're not killing him."

"Sweetheart-"

"Kill him and you lose me," with that she turned her back and walked away from him.

Bellamy's heart felt like it stopped when she spoke those words. The last thing he ever wanted was to lose his sister or his girl.

✶✶✶

The remaining criminals including Violet all made their way to the drop ship in a hurry.

"What's going on?" Monty asked a random girl.

"The air got thick everybody's skin started burning."

Octavia looked at the boy worriedly, "Monty my brothers out there."

"He'll be fine. We'll all be fine," he reassured her.

Violet came and sat down next to Octavia. "He's right O. Bellamy will be fine. He'll find shelter," the girl also tried to reassure her friend while putting her arms around her for a brief moment. Octavia nodded gratefully and hugged her back, happy that while the safety of her brother is unknown, she does know that her best friend is safe right next to her.

✶✶✶

Bellamy had been asleep in a cave taking shelter from the fog when a scream woke him up. "No!" the 12 year old Charlotte screamed in her sleep.

"Charlotte, wake up." Bellamy shook the girl.

"I'm sorry," she whined.

He ignored the apology instead asking, "Does it happen often?" The girl sighed in reply. "What are you scared of?" Getting no response he continues, "You know what? It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you do about it."

"But...I'm asleep," Charlotte says confused.

Bellamy explained, "Fears are fears. Slay your demons when you're awake, they won't be there to get you when you sleep."

Still confused she asks, "Yeah, but...how?

"You can't afford to be weak. Down here, weakness is death, fear is death." He continued, "Let me see that knife I gave you." Doing as told she held up the knife she was given.

Bellamy took it from her and held it up, "Now when you feel afraid you hold tight to that knife and say, 'Screw you. I'm not afraid.'" He handed the knife back to her.

Taking his advice, Charlotte help up the knife and quietly said, "Screw you. I'm not afraid." Bellamy gave her a look that said, you can do better than that. She said once more, this time with much more confidence, "Screw you. I'm not afraid." Bellamy smiled approvingly. "Slay your demons kid. Then you'll be able to sleep."

He had sat back against the cave wall when the girl spoke up again. "Can you tell me a story to help me fall asleep?"

He thought for a moment before replying, "Like what?"

"Tell me how you met Violet."

[css1992]

Guilty Pleasure

[Porn AU]

Summary: Peter and Beck used to be a power couple in the porn industry, but after Beck dumps him, Peter is forced to start over. With no money, no family and nowhere to go, he doesn’t have much choice other than to keep doing porn, so he joins Just4Fans to get back on his feet and then one day he gets a very generous tip from someone under the username of YKWIM.

All the warnings listed on Part I apply.

Read on AO3

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V / Part VI / Part VII / Part VIII / Part IX / Part X /  Part XI / Epilogue

-x-

The last couple of weeks of May flew by, soon June arrived and with it even more sunny days and warmer temperatures. Peter couldn’t help but think that his life fell apart in the winter, and as summer approached, it was slowly getting back on track. He was able to save a decent amount of money every month, his apartment was coming together – he even had a dinner table and chairs by the second week of June –, he was taking on more responsibility at BFF way quicker than expected and he was happier, in general.

He felt comfortable enough to make plans again – with the steady money he was making, he might be able to give up porn in a couple of years and he would still be eligible to apply for some of BFF’s grants and scholarships, meaning he may be able to go to college at 23, after all. Money would be tight for a while, but it was doable. He could always work part-time to supplement his income as well.

Summer also brought some unexpected good news. On a random Thursday morning, he was bombarded with messages on Twitter and Instagram from people asking where they could find his videos now that Beck’s channel was down. He was confused at first, but when he went to check, the channel wasn’t there, it had disappeared from the site.

He gasped. For a total of five seconds, his mind went wild, his heart raced, and his eyes watered. For those five seconds, he felt a mixture of happiness, relief and confusion, knowing those videos weren’t out there anymore, couldn’t be found, couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be remembered. But it was only for five blissful seconds. When his brain turned back on and the first rush of excitement died down, he realized that probably wouldn’t last.

That had happened before, when they first started posting. People mass reported the videos and the channel until they got taken down, because Peter looked very young at eighteen. They had to send a picture of his ID to the website for check several times, it was months before it stopped happening once and for all. Peter assumed Beck was posting videos of his new boyfriend, who he knew looked very young, so it was probably just a misunderstanding and only a matter of time until he got the channel – and the videos – back up.

Still, he allowed himself to count that as a win and couldn’t help but feeling giddy all day, to the point where everybody noticed his good mood – Ned, MJ, people at BFF and Tony.

Tony, who didn’t disappear. As days and nights and weeks went by, Peter stopped waiting for it to happen.

“Someone is awfully cheery today.” The older man grinned at him from the driver’s side that night, as Peter sang along to Ed Sheeran, because it was his turn to choose the playlist. Tony had picked him up from BFF and they were heading to his place for a quiet night in.

“It’s a good day, Tony.” He shot back after the chorus of Put it All on Me and the older man beamed, the corners of his eyes crinkling up.

“It sure is, kitten.” He turned up the volume and Peter sang even louder, causing Tony to burst out laughing.

At some point, he realized life was a little less complicated than he gave it credit for. He realized that if he actually gave things the precise amount of thought they deserved, not everything felt like the end of the world. The minute he decided to just let things happen the way they were supposed to happen, without overthinking every detail, life got so much easier.

He decided not to make the thing with Tony a big deal. Sure, when he thought about it for more than two minutes, it seemed like a huge fucking deal, he was basically dating Tony Stark, one of the richest men in the world, Iron Man himself, the man who had literately saved half the universe from extinction not even two years earlier. So, yes, that seemed like a big fucking deal, but–

But.

To him, he was just Tony. This charming guy who texted him daily to ask about his day and crack acid jokes about his business associates. This kind guy who sent him chocolates when he was feeling down and cooked him dinner every weekend and made sure to e-mail him easy and healthy recipes so he wouldn’t starve to death. This gentle guy who called him beautiful and touched him with such care that he forgot how many hands had left bruises on his skin before.

When he forgot everything Tony was supposed to be and just focused on everything that he was to him, what they had seemed so simple and pure.

He stopped worrying about labels, too. In the beginning, he kept stressing about what they had, what was expected of him, what he expected of Tony, but eventually, he decided none of that mattered. They made each other feel good, they made each other happy, they made each other better, all in all, whatever label he could put on their relationship wouldn’t make any difference, so he let it go.

Weeks later, Peter heard Beck had managed to get the channel back up, only for it to get taken down again in a few hours, then his Instagram and Twitter also disappeared. He wasn’t too surprised, and if he was honest with himself, it was fun imagining Beck losing his mind as he tried to fix it. After all, every day the channel was down, he was losing money. And his social media, specially his Twitter account, was where he promoted his content to thousands of followers, so losing that meant losing money as well, and if there was one thing Peter knew Beck loved, it was money.

He wondered what the fuck the man had done to piss people off like that, it was clearly a coordinated attack, but he wasn’t curious enough to try and find out what happened. He would rather watch from a distance, rejoicing in the satisfaction it gave him to imagine that maybe, just maybe, one of those days Beck wouldn’t be able to get the channel back up and would have to start from scratch, like Peter did. And maybe then he wouldn’t re-upload his videos – that part was a little harder to believe, but who knew, stranger things had happened.

When June came to an end, Peter was surprised with a notification from Tony on Just4Fans. He had almost forgot the man was still subscribed to his account there, they obviously never chatted on the app anymore, and when he opened the notification, his blood ran cold in his veins.

It was a tip.

A hundred thousand dollars tip.

He couldn’t fucking believe it. A tip? For what, a job well done? It wasn’t like Peter was – what did that even mean? Was Tony trying to say something with that, send some kind of message?

He decided not to call him right away, he was too – upset. The older man was picking him up later that evening for dinner, so he decided to wait. Whatever he had to say to him, he wanted to hear it in person. He wanted him to look in his eyes and tell him he thought he was his fucking wh–

“What is the meaning of this?” He asked as soon he got in his car, avoiding the kiss that came his way. Tony blinked in surprise, trying to understand why he got a phone shoved in his face instead of a kiss, and then he finally saw what that was all about.

“Oh, that–“ But before he could answer anything, Peter interrupted.

“I told you I’m not – Tony, why would you – this is so insulting!” He was honestly at a loss for words. They had been seeing each other for almost two months by then, things were going great, they met every week, they made apple pie together, for God’s sake, had he misunderstood all the signs?

“My God, Peter, that’s not that, I just thought – I mean, I’m a billionaire, you know this is pocket change for me, right?” Peter gasped, shocked, and Tony’s eyes widened when he fumbled with the door handle. “Wait! I didn’t mean – Jesus, okay, hold on a second, please!” Tony reached over him to shut the door before Peter could get out of the car. The young man turned to look at him with tears in his eyes and Tony looked incredulous when he leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t just assume the worst, have I given you any reason for that?” He sounded hurt, which made Peter gulp. He took a few calming breaths and shook his head slowly.

“No,” he whispered, dropping his gaze.

“Ok, good.” He actually sounded relieved at that. “I am a billionaire, Peter, and this is pocket change for me, which means –“ he raised his voice a little, predicting a reaction from him that didn’t come, “I didn’t realize this would be such a big deal. For me, it’s like giving you, I don’t know, flowers. I didn’t mean this as a payment for whatever you think this is, I just thought this would be a good help. You’re starting your life now, you have that list of yours that you don’t let me see, you’re saving up money, you have your plans for college, I just meant to help. I mean, if we weren’t together, I would have tipped you every month, so I thought –“

“But we are together, Tony, I –“ he was a little calmer then, because that was, in fact, a reasonable explanation and he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. “Look, I appreciate the gesture, but next time you mean to give me flowers, just give me flowers! I believe you have the best intentions at heart, but it’s just weird for me. I don’t want this to be about money. I just – don’t want that, okay?”

He gazed at the older man as he gaped at him, mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out for a while.

“I just thought – I mean, people usually –“ It was unusual to see Tony speechless like that, but the man shook his head and looked back at him, almost embarrassed. “I just want to help you.”

“Are you kidding me?” Peter poked him in the arm, trying to lighten up the mood in the car. “You’re teaching me how to cook. Yesterday I made an omelet and I only burned one side, I’m getting good at this. That’s a big help.”

Tony didn’t laugh at his joke, like he usually did, he just gazed at him with an unreadable expression, before leaning in to kiss him, which Peter gladly reciprocated.

“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” he whispered, then, resting his forehead against his.

“And I’m sorry I was rude. It won’t happen again,” he promised, and he meant it.

After that night, he removed Tony from his Just4Fans, which came as a blow to the older man, who pouted and whined for about a week, only stopping when Peter showed up at his place one Saturday wearing Iron Man lingerie under his clothes – it was supposed to be a joke, but it worked surprisingly well for Tony.  

By July, it became impossible to keep sneaking around Ned and MJ, as the dates became more frequent. Peter decided to tell them that he had met someone online and that they were getting to know each other. He told them it was nothing serious yet and if it became serious, they would meet him.

He did have to throw in a few lies to get them off his back – he definitely had to lie about Tony’s age to avoid certain comparisons, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it, if he ever got to it. He wasn’t sure if or when he was going to tell them the whole truth, but for the time being, he  felt more comfortable keeping that relationship to himself.

He and Tony didn’t go out much, but when they did, it was always to fancy and discreet restaurants with private rooms; Tony was, after all, a celebrity for all intents and purposes, and at if the press got a whiff of them there would be no secret left to keep.

But staying in with Tony was far from boring. They cooked together and the older man taught him all of his grandmother’s secret recipes – Peter could never replicate them by himself at home, but it was still fun trying. They spent almost all of their time down in the workshop, though, where Tony  had him do menial tasks, like screwing bolts or reaching for a part inside an Iron Man suit. He said his tiny hands were useful for his projects.

He knew he wasn’t really that useful, but he loved when Tony included him and asked for his help, even though he didn’t really need it. He was fascinated by everything the older man taught him in those moments and in turn Tony always looked proud and pleased when Peter put his lessons to use.

He didn’t mind keeping him company when Tony was focused on projects he couldn’t help with, he stayed there anyway, reading a book or watching TV on the tiny couch – Tony kept saying he was going to get a bigger one, but he didn’t believe it, he knew the older man enjoyed the fact that the only way they could fit comfortably on it was if Peter was lying half on top of him.

So after several weeks, they established a little routine of their own. Since Tony had a busy schedule and Peter was still trying to keep Ned and MJ somewhat in the dark, they didn’t meet that often on week days, but they always talked on the phone before bed. On Thursdays, Tony picked him up after his shift at BFF and he spent the night at his place. They had breakfast together on Fridays and then they met again every Saturday after lunch, and finally Tony dropped him back off home every Sunday evening, so he could have dinner with his friends.

In August, for the first time in his life, Peter had two birthday celebrations. One with his friends, when the three of them went bar-hopping and he got home so hammered he had absolutely no idea how they managed to climb the stairs, and another with Tony, when he decorated the workshop with  balloons and put party hats on Dum-E and U.

“Surprise!” He yelled lamely, throwing confetti at Peter when they stepped into the workshop. The younger man laughed, delighted, as Tony hurried to the kitchenette and came back with something in his hands. “I know it doesn’t look good, but I promise it tastes good. Probably.” When Peter looked down, he noticed it was a large chocolate cake with ‘Happy Birthday, kitten’ written on it in bright pink icing. It looked so ugly, but it was so beautiful at the same time. “What did I do now?” Tony frowned, face falling.

He blinked a few times and when he touched his cheeks, he realized he was crying.

“I’m sorry, I’m just – really happy.” He grinned, pulling the older man’s face to give him a kiss. “Thank you.”

It was late October when Tony told him he had to go on a trip to China for two weeks, and even though it wasn’t his first work trip since they started dating, five months earlier, it would be by far the longest one since then, so it was kind of a big deal. Still, he didn’t expect to feel so affected, but on the days leading up to it he was so upset he couldn’t hide it.

They spent their last Sunday together wrapped up in each other doing absolutely nothing. They slept in, Tony brought Peter breakfast in bed, which was rewarded with a lazy and sloppy blow job, and they spent all day in bed, only getting up for essentials, like food and water. They didn’t even turn on the TV, they didn’t even talk much. They just held each other and exchanged slow, tender kisses until their bodies were too warm to stay under the sheets.

Tony ran a bath for them and got in the tub – it was big enough for eight people, but Peter made a point to sit in his lap, clinging to him like a koala. He felt Tony’s arms encircle him gently, as he rested his chin on top of his head.

“I’ll be home before you even have time to miss me, kitten.” He whispered, and those were the first words either of them had said in at least a few hours.

Peter didn’t tell him that was impossible since he already missed him, instead he just held him even tighter.

After the bath water went cold, they climbed out of the tub and Tony insisted on drying him, before dressing him in one of his own T-shirts, even though Peter had a multitude of spare clothes in his closet. He sat in bed, watching Tony pack a huge suitcase that reminded him just how long he would be gone for. He sulked a little – just a little – and that earned him a little kiss on his forehead, which was enough to undo the frown between his brows.

Finally, in the evening, Tony parked his car in front of Peter’s building, turning to look at him with an almost pained smile, before leaning in for a kiss.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Peter whispered against his mouth and felt when Tony’s lips stretched into a small smile. He pulled away a little, just enough to look into his eyes, and cupped his chin in his hand.

“I’ll miss you too, but I won’t be long, ok? It’s just a few days.” He pecked Peter’s lips one more time for good measure and the younger man nodded.

“Call me if you have time.”

“Of course, kitten, every day.” He leaned in for another kiss, this one longer than the previous, and Peter’s heart fluttered. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, containing the urge to say those three words that had been trapped in the back of his throat for weeks.

“Have a safe trip. Let me know when you land.”

“I will, baby.”

Peter got out of the car and waved, watching as it disappeared down the street. He sighed and his heart ached, he already missed Tony and it had only been a few seconds, how was he going to survive fifteen whole days? It seemed impossible. It was crazy to think how far they had come since March, when they talked for the first time. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

He turned to go inside, but froze in place when he heard a familiar voice.

“So that’s why you’ve been ignoring me, huh? How rude.” He turned slowly to the left, only to be met with Beck’s cocky, arrogant smile, just a few feet away from him. “I tried calling, I tried texting, you’ve blocked me everywhere, I can’t even e-mail you anymore, it appears.” Beck walked slowly and leaned against the rails of the stairs to Peter’s building and the younger man curled his hands in fists, trying to control the urge to just run. “Long time no see, Petey-pie.”

He was paralyzed, muscles rigid, but to his own surprise, it wasn’t fear that he felt, or sadness. It was pure anger.  

“I wonder why,” he answered quietly, but firmly. Beck’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, before the smile was back in place. “How did you find me?” He demanded, because Beck had never cared to ask where Peter was going to stay after he kicked him out, so how in the hell would he know where to find him?

“Wasn’t easy, I have been following you on Instagram, some of your morning run routes seemed familiar, so I–”

“You stalked me?” He frowned, taking a step closer to the other man, who looked at Peter with indignation and hurt. He shook his head, softened those baby blue eyes and placed one hand over his chest, right above where his heart would have been if he had one.

“I just wanted to see you, is all.” He shrugged, dropping his gaze to stare at his own feet, and Peter wanted to roll his eyes. It was so weird watching his whole act now that the spell had been lifted.

“What do you want?” He asked, making the older man’s head snap back up, a little surprised by his cold tone.

“I just told you, I wanted to see you. I missed you.” He took a few steps towards Peter, who in turn walked backwards to keep his distance

“You missed me?” He scoffed, shaking his head. “Where’s your new boy-toy, you put him away so you could come play with me?” He cocked his head to the side and, for a moment, he could see the shock crossing his features.

“Pete… Why are you acting like this, it’s like I don’t even know you anymore...” His voice broke and he looked away, pretending to wipe away a tear. He wondered how the hell he used to fall for that.

“You don’t, Quentin. I’m not a lost little boy anymore, you should go back to your boyfriend. Or is he smarter than me and dumped you already? Is that what this is all about?” He narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest, and Beck’s mouth hung open like he couldn’t believe his words.

“I made a mistake, Pete. After so many years, I took you for granted, I couldn’t see what I saw the first time I met you. I couldn’t see how beautiful you were, how caring and loving you were, how loyal and reliable and – I don’t know, I was blind. I was so stupid, I shouldn’t have left you.” His eyes were wide, earnest, shining with unshed tears. His face was open, even his body language screamed honesty. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so bad about falling for his act – Beck was good. “Don’t  you miss me, baby? Don’t you miss us?”

Peter snorted, shaking his head, he couldn’t believe the nerve of that man.

“You made a mistake, huh? So you dumped your new boy, right? If I were to go home with you right now, he wouldn’t be there, waiting for you, like a fucking plan B, in case this doesn’t go your way. Right?” It was his turn to take a few steps towards the older man. “Like I was your plan B while you waited for him to turn 18?”

“Peter, c’mon–“

“Is he there, Beck? Just answer me that. Come on, if he’s not, I’ll take you back right now, we can go home together.” He insisted, looking into the older man’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything, he just sighed. “Of course he is. If I said yes, what would you do? Tell him to pack his things in the middle of the night and leave? Would you keep all the money he’s made you and tell him to fuck off? Would you leave him broke and lonely and fucking lost in this world? Would you tell him that he wasn’t good enough and dispose of him like he’s fucking garbage?” His voice grew louder and louder, and when he came to himself, he noticed he was in Beck’s face, their chests almost touching, so he took a step back. “So to answer your question, Quentin, no, I don’t fucking miss you. You fucking ruined me!”

“I saved you!” And just like that, the good guy act was gone. His whole demeanor changed, the soft baby blues widened, his mouth was set in a sneer, he puffed out his chest to intimidate him, but Peter stood his ground. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember who you were before me. You were a fucking loser! An orphan, no family, no friends, no future! I took you in, I took care of you, I gave you a profession – don’t fucking roll your eyes, what the fuck are you doing now, huh? Rocket science? ‘Cause it seems to me like you’re still doing porn, and now you’re clearly branching out into prostitution, would you look at that!”

“You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about!” He placed his hands on the man’s chest and pushed him away when he got too fucking close for comfort. He held his breath when he realized what he had done, afraid of the man’s reaction, but he just kept his distance.  

“You know what? Fuck you, Peter. I was wrong about you, I thought I knew who you were, I thought I missed you, but you’re just a disgusting fucking whore, after all. You’re a dirty little bitch in heat who likes to get this loose hole of yours fucked by old perverts, I don’t know why I’m surprised, I mean, that’s why I dumped you, you were enjoying those videos a little bit too much for my taste. You weren’t even satisfied with two cocks up your ass, one in your mouth and a line of men waiting to fuck you. You disgust me.” He started walking away, and Peter wanted to say something, he wanted to yell at him and defend himself, he wanted to tell him he didn’t fucking enjoy it, he wanted to tell him that it was all his fault, he threw him to the lions, he let those men fucking–

Fuck!

He rushed inside the building and ran upstairs, eyes clouded with tears. He tripped and fell knees first on the steps, but he didn’t even feel pain, he just got up and kept going, kept running, trying to put as much distance between him and Beck as he could, even though it was irrational. Beck was gone, he walked away, he left him, he left him again, he wasn’t coming back–

“Ned?!” He knocked urgently on his friends’ door. He didn’t have his spare key, it was upstairs in his own apartment, but he couldn’t trust himself to go all the way up there and down again without having a full on panic attack. “MJ?! Are you guys home?!” He was really trying not to sound too desperate, he didn’t want to scare them, but it was hard controlling his emotions when his heart was hammering against his chest and he couldn’t fucking breathe.

“Peter?” It was MJ who yanked the door open. She had a towel wrapped around her torso, her hair was wet, and Peter felt guilty, but she took one look at him and quickly pulled him into a hug. “My God, Peter...” She whispered into his hair when he started sobbing uncontrollably on her naked shoulder. “Come on in, c’mon.” He heard the door closing behind him, but he didn’t let go of her, he felt like if he did, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself together.  

He wanted to tell her not to worry, that she should go finish her shower and change, but he really, really needed her right then. She sat down on the couch, pulling him with her and he promptly laid down, burying his face in her legs. He couldn’t stop crying and sobbing and no matter how many times she asked him what was wrong, sounding increasingly more worried, he couldn’t get his feelings under control enough to give her any answer.

He was there for what felt like hours, when at some point someone lifted him from MJ’s lap and enveloped him in such a tight hug he couldn’t breath for a second, but he sighed in relief, it was right what he needed. Ned’s arms felt like home, it calmed him down almost instantly – his voice whispering that it was fine, everything was going to be okay helped a lot, too.

“I hate him, I hate him so fucking much,” he mumbled into his shoulder, God knew how much time later, and his friend just hummed, patting his back. “I hate that he made a mess of me and I let him.” He couldn’t hold back more tears when he said that, because it was true, it was so fucking true. He let Beck do whatever he wanted to him, he let him ruin his dreams, his future, his fucking personality, until he was nothing but a shell of what he used to be.

“I know, Peter, I know,” Ned soothed him, rubbing his back, even though he probably had no idea what he was talking about. “It’s okay now. You’re okay. It’s over”

“I made tea.” MJ’s quiet voice sounded somewhere from his right and when he turned to look at her, she was already dressed, wet hair up in a bun, with a mug in her hands, which she extended to him. He accepted it but didn’t dare to take a sip, he was positive that if he did, he would throw up, his stomach was all kinds of fucked up at that moment. “Peter, what happened? Did Star – uh, did your boyfriend do something? Did he hurt? ‘Cause I swear to God–” Just the mention of Tony being the cause of his distress made him sick, so he cut her off.

“Beck was here.” He sniffed, looking at the mug to avoid their eyes when he heard both of them gasping.

“Beck? Beck was here? Fucking Beck?” MJ screeched and he nodded.

“He was waiting for me outside.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to gather enough energy to have that conversation.  

“What did he want?” Ned asked calmly, while MJ paced the floor, furious.

“I don’t know...” He shrugged, wrecking his brain to try and figure out what his motive was. “His channel got taken down a few weeks ago and he couldn’t get it back up. I heard he had to start over.” He hadn’t been watching that closely, but he knew something was wrong, even his Twitter and Instagram accounts kept getting taken down almost monthly, it was impossible he was making any money over the past few months. “He said he wanted to get back together, probably because he thinks us making up would be a big hit or whatever. I said no, of course. He didn’t like the answer.”

“Did he hurt you?!” MJ strode back to him until she was standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes. He was almost intimidated by her.

“No, he just… Said some pretty shitty things, is all,” he answered sheepishly, because he hated that that man could still make a mess of him with just a few hurtful words.

“Oh, dude. He’s just mad he’s lost control over you. Whatever he said, he just wanted to hurt you, it doesn’t mean anything.” Ned placed an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer, and Peter rested his head against his, sighing.

“I know. He was always like that, you know,” he whispered, as flashes of memories crossed his mind. “When I didn’t bend to his wishes, when I didn’t do things his way, he fucking–“ He squeezed his eyes shut, furious, because he had fallen for that again. “He tries to charm me and when it doesn’t work, he attacks me. But the thing is, he really knows what to say to destroy me. It just sucks. But it’s fine. I just need a moment, I’ll be fine.” He sat up straight and looked both of his friends in the eyes.

“Yes, you will. You most certainly will.” Ned patted his shoulder one last time, getting up from the couch. “Why don’t you lie down for a second, huh? I’m making dinner, I’ll even try one of those recipes your mystery boyfriend taught you.” Just the mention of Tony made him breathe a little easier, even though he wouldn’t be able to see him for a while.

“Okay.” He nodded, smiling softly. MJ took Ned’s place on the couch and he lay down, placing his head on her legs, as she ran her fingers through his hair. He sighed contently and closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. He was close to drifting off when he heard Ned gasp.

“Oh my God,” He breathed quietly from the kitchen and both Peter and MJ looked at him curiously from over the back of the couch.

“What?” She didn’t look too worried, but Peter was concerned about how pale he was.

“Ned, what’s wrong?” He frowned, watching Ned’s horrified expression looking at his phone like it was a murder scene. He raised his eyes and gulped.

“Peter is trending on Twitter,” he whispered, after a while.

“What?!” They both hurried over to the kitchen counter, and the first thing Peter saw when he looked at his phone was a picture of him and Tony in his car, kissing. As Ned scrolled down, more pictures showed up, but not only that, clips of his old videos were all over Twitter, people knew his full name, his real name, and they were making all sorts of comments. Iron Man, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, sex worker, prostitute and porn were trending.

The room was completely silent for a whole minute, before MJ turned on the TV.

“… appear that Tony Stark, former CEO of Stark Industries and retired Avenger, was seen kissing a young man in his car earlier this evening. The person in the pictures seems to be one Peter Parker, a twenty-one year old porn actor, who is also said to work as a prostitute…”

Peter’s heart sank to the bottom of his stomach, his vision blurred and he felt bile rising in his throat. He took a deep breath and got up from the couch, ears ringing, as he rushed to the front door.  He heard his friends yelling something, but he couldn’t make out their words, and he just couldn’t deal with all that right then and there.

“I, uhm, I gotta go,” he called from over his shoulder, slamming the door shut on his way out.

As he ran upstairs, vision blurred by tears and chest hurting, begging for oxygen, he couldn’t help but remember his life fell apart in the winter. And fall would be over soon.

-x-

So... It appears that someone has lost the ability to write short chapters... 

Anyways, only three more chapters to go!  🥳

Tag list (please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the list):  @sadachmesarthim @iamnotparticularlyproud @staticwhispersinthedark @bluestarker @ whyisthisathingcb

[maggotzombie]

LIEBE LIESE: ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴠɪɪ - ℬ𝒶𝒹𝒹𝑒𝓈𝓉 ℬ𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽

→ CHAPTERS LIST — CHAPTER VI: UNDER PRESSURE WORDS: 6,3k TW: Lots of alcohol, swearing, some fluff, family drama! A/N: Here we are! Thank you so much who stuck with me. I don’t really know why this took such a long time, but I want to gives special thank my in-house German queen, @hinagiku0 (you’re the best, I love you for still talk to me everyday), and the best beta out there, @itmejado (really, I can’t thank you enough for making my stories even better!). So here it is a very long chapter to compensate lol HEADS UP: German dialogue is marked with “[  ]”.

‘I WONDER what Henry’s up to’, the woman thinks.

She frowns. Having just come home from work, Liese is exhausted. But she doesn't feel like being alone tonight. 

The first person she thinks of is him and she’s even more surprised by the fact that she misses him!

‘So much for getting my hopes up, huh?’, she scoffs, searching for her phone.

She smiles and lets him know that she’s going to get ready.

After a quick shower, she puts on warm clothes and makeup. The simple pin-up look goes well with the color of her hair and Liese realizes it’s been a long time since last she wore red lipstick.

To get there faster, Liese calls an Uber and, oh how she regrets it. It’s chillier than usual tonight and sitting in the cold Tube is nightmare-inducing. However, having the Uber driver hitting on her all the way is also not the best...

Liese clearly isn’t keen on a conversation but he insists on it. To make things even worse, it’s Friday night and there’s traffic. So the doctor practically leaps from the car when the man parks in front of the pub.

The Builders Arms is a big pub but it’s packed. Well, again, it’s a Friday night, and it looks like there’s a match of some sort going on.

Running her eyes through the crowd, Liese quickly spots Henry’s broad shoulders and begins making her way towards him. His back is turned away from the entrance so he doesn’t see her but his friends sure do.

The three men staring at her don’t tear their eyes away as she approaches the small group. However, they seem disappointed, but not surprised, when the doctor goes straight towards Henry, resting a hand on the actor’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Hey,” She greets, a warm smile spreading across her lips.

He turns around to look at her. “Hey you,” Henry wraps an arm around her waist as she gives a friendly kiss on his cheek, leaving a faint mark of lipstick on it.

“Sorry, it took me so long to get here,” The woman starts, backing up to look at his face. Then, she reaches out to rub off the red imprint of her lips from his skin. “The traffic was awful tonight.”

“It’s okay. You’re ravishing,” Henry says and she smiles but, before she could say anything, one of his friends clears their throat. “Oh, sorry, let me introduce you to my mates. This is Mark, Juan, Roger, James, and my brother, Simon,” She shakes hands with each man he introduces, smiling. “This is Liese.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” Liese says.

“You, too,” Roger says. “You’re really pretty,” He adds and he would give Henry a pat in the back if he wasn’t across from him at the table.

It doesn’t stop the man from shooting him a glare. “Thanks,” She chuckles.

“Please, have a seat,” Simon says from beside his brother and Henry pulls the chair for her. “Heard a great deal about you lately,” He then says and Liese smiles at him.

“All lies,” She says, making them chuckle. “I’m as bad as they come.”

Although she feigned normalcy when greeting him, it didn’t go unnoticed that Henry just introduced her to his brother, a part of his family – and, of course, a bunch of friends. They’d known each other for less than a month; it was a huge deal.

The woman makes a mental note to kill Henry later.

“What will the lady have?” Mark asks and they look at him. “Wine?” He suggests.

She almost snorts for two reasons: his suggestion and what he called her. But, hey, she must be nice.

“Wine is for priests, love,” Liese jokes with a smirk. “I’ll have a pint, thank you very much – Oh, and the menu, please. I’m starving.”

Henry chuckles at his friends’ reaction and signals to the bartender. “Alright,” Mark nods. “I like you already,” He decides and she winks at him playfully.

“It’s the match over already?” The woman asks, trying to make conversation.

“No,” Juan replies. “Halftime,” He explains.

“Oh,” She says.

Her pint is placed in front of her alongside the menu. She orders a burger with French fries and mozzarella sticks. When the waiter leaves, she can finally take a drink.

“Hm, rugby. Of course,” Liese says to herself as she looks up at the flat screen everybody has their eyes locked on.

“Not a fan?” Simon asks, leaning on his elbows to look at her.

“I don’t know much about it, to be honest,” She replies, mirroring his position.

All the eyes snap in her direction. “Are you serious?” Henry asks in disbelief.

“No. I’m a football kinda woman, you know that,” The woman shrugs and he chuckles.

“That’s true,” He nods.

“Where are you from, Liese?” James asks and she looks at him before glancing back at Henry.

“I really don’t look British, do I?” She narrows her eyes.

The man laughs. “No, you don’t,” He shakes his head.

“Well,” Liese looks back at his friend. “I was born and raised in Hampstead but my family is from the Land of Poets and Thinkers…” She replies humorously.

Everybody chuckles, except Juan. “Which is?” He asks.

The woman looks at him in disbelief. “Deutschland!”

“Germany,” Some of the guys say at the same time as her.

“Oh,” He nods. “That doesn’t make sense,” Juan shakes his head.

“Cmon!” Liese throws her hands in the air in frustration. “I’ll give you some names: Nietzsche, Marx, Adorno, Horkheimer, Kant, Goethe, Beethoven, Bach, freaking Einstein, even the Grimm Brothers,” She ticks each name on her fingers.

They laugh and Henry rests his arm on the backrest of her seat. “Okay,” Juan nods, fairly convinced.

“I could go on,” The woman says. “And that’s just the ones on the top of my head.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve made your point.”

She nods, sipping on her drink and leaning back on her chair. Henry’s hand squeezes her shoulder fondly.

“Do you still live in Hampstead?” Simon asks.

“Nope. I’m on the other side of the river, at Brixton,” She replies and they start to boo her.

“Ah, you’re from the south,” James makes a disgusted face.

“Yeah, I know,” The woman shrugs off. “I did grow up on this side of the river, though!” She points out. “But the south it’s not that bad, guys,” Another round of boos. “Plus, it’s closer to work,” She adds.

“Now, don’t try to defend your side, South,” Mark mocks, taking a sip of his beer.

Liese chuckles. “Where do you work?” Roger asks and she looks at him.

“At St. Thomas’ Hospital,” She replies.

“Are you a doctor or a nurse?” James inquiries. “Or neither?”

“Doctor. A&E and pediatrician,” Liese explains.

“It means she’s smart,” Henry brags, sipping his beer and resting back on his chair.

“Yeah. I think we got it from the list of poets and thinkers,” Juan mocks.

She winks at him playfully. “You got it, baby,” Liese smiles.

“So, I got a question,” Mark starts and she nods for him to proceed. “Why the silver hair? I don’t see many doctors looking this cool.”

“I lost a bet to my younger brother,” The doctor replies. “A football bet,” She adds and they seem incredulous.

“Seriously?” James asks.

The woman shrugs. “Yeah. It’s just a thing we do.”

Their conversation dies when the second period of the match starts and the male attention drifts back to the TV. Although rugby is not Liese’s cup of tea, her eyes are fixed on the flat screen as well. She doesn’t know the rules and there’s a lot of tackling going on but she doesn’t mind. This is way better than being alone at home.

“Bärchen!” The shout from not so far is enough to make Liese sigh.

“I’m sorry,” She whispers to Henry, who’s heavily engrossed in the match.

“Huh?” He glances at her with a frown and she shakes her head slightly.

Roger grimaces at the shirtless man coming their way as Liese simply waits for her brother to get to her.

“Drunk guy alert,” He says and the woman rolls her eyes.

“[I knew it was you, Bärchen!]” Her brother says with a huge smile, standing beside the woman.

Her jaw almost drops to the floor when she looks up at him to find the man shirtless, displaying his tattoo collection on the rippled muscles for everyone to see.

“What the fuck?” She asks in disbelief. “[Why are you shirtless, asshole?]” Liese stands up.

He quickly wraps his arms around her and she groans without patience. She’s very aware of multiple sets of eyes staring at them but mostly the stench of alcohol coming from her brother.

“[Alright, let go of me],” She taps his back.

“[I’ve missed you],” He pulls away.

“[You literally dropped me off at work this morning],” She points out, spotting their friends over his shoulder at a table in the far back.

“Mate, you can’t stay here shirtless,” A worker says, looking at her brother.

“I’m taking care of it,” The woman reassures before turning to her table. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” She says before pushing her brother away.

“Who’s that?” James asks as they watch the woman escorting the shirtless tattooed man away.

“No idea,” Henry replies, trying not to feel as jealous as he already is.

His eyes linger on Liese from across the bar as she greets other men, scolding at a particular one and her brother, who’s pulling a shirt over his head.

The looks she received from men and even a few women on the way to the other table doesn’t go unnoticed. In fact, there are a few men still staring at the silver-haired woman and Henry suddenly feels the need to establish territory, which is incredibly stupid of him, but a basic instinct.

“[Weren’t you supposed to be babysitting tonight?]” She asks her brother, hands on her hips.

He shakes his head. “[Who are you here with?]” He asks, looking back at Henry’s table.

“[Do not deflect, Otto],” Liese says.

“[Is the guy you’re hooking up with?]” He continues and Henry glances back at them quickly.

“Otto…” She warns.

The man narrows his eyes. “[Hold on. Are you fucking Superman?]” He looks back at his sister with a smirk and she punches his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. Their friends laugh. “Goddamn, woman,” Otto hisses, rubbing the spot.

Liese sighs, looking back at her table. “Come on,” She says, starting to move away. “Don’t embarrass me,” The woman adds quickly.

“When do I ever embarrass you?” He asks, following after her, his German accent very thick as if he was in Germany all his life.

The woman glares back at him. “How about a few minutes ago when you’re half-naked in front of everyone? Or just now, asking if I’m fucking Superman,” She asks ironically.

Otto nods. “Got it,” He says, and for the first time tonight, he takes a proper look at his sister. “You’re very pretty tonight.”

The compliment is delivered just as they stop at Henry’s table and all the attention is back on them.

“Thank you,” She replies before addressing the other men. “Gentlemen, this is my brother, Otto...” The woman starts. “Otto, this is Henry, his brother, Simon, and his mates, Juan, Mark, James, and Roger,” She introduces them.

“Nice to meet you,” Her brother says, shaking their hands as Liese sits back down, shooting an apologetic look to Henry.

Brad looks at Otto with a funny expression. “You have an accent,” He points out.

He snorts. “You too, mate.”

“No. I mean, your sister doesn’t have one,” Brad clarifies.

“That’s because you’ve never pissed her off,” Her brother chuckles and Liese simply takes a sip of her beer, refraining from commenting on it. “Hey, is it cool if my mates and I sit here with you guys?”

For some reason, everybody looks at Henry as if it’s his decision.

“Yeah. Sure, mate,” The actor nods.

“Sweet,” Otto turns around and his sister quickly looks up at him.

“Don’t –,” She’s cut off by his loud whistle, exactly what she was trying to stop. “[Dear Lord],” She murmurs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Henry’s soothing touch is what eases out the stress a bit and she smiles at him.

Otto motions for his friends to come over and they quickly abandon their table. He takes a seat next to Liese and she shoots him a murderous look to which he simply grins. The blonde man introduces Nick, Josh, Pete, and John when they arrive.

Thanks to the still-ongoing rugby match, they simply sit and start to pay attention to it. Liese knows her brother is not interested at all in the match, just like her, but he pretends to watch it just so he can avoid her confronting him.

The woman’s stomach grumbles when a waitress brings her food and she sighs happily, picking up the heavy burger. She’s aware of Otto’s eyes at her food and she doesn’t even take the first bite before he asks for one.

“This looks good,” He points out, looking at it suggestively.

She glares at him but gives him the burger anyway. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Liese asks, looking at the size of his bite when he gives her the burger back. He shrugs off. “You’re unbelievable.”

She takes a bite and Otto takes the burger again, giving it back without another huge chunk missing. Liese literally has two bites of her burger before she gives up and lets her brother have it. Ignoring her craving for the oily meat, she tries to satisfy herself with the French fries and mozzarella sticks.

A hand reaches out for her fries and she slaps it away. “Don’t you dare,” The woman seethes.

Her brother chuckles. “Want another one?” Henry gently asks.

Her mood shifts like a bipolar person and Liese smile, looking up at him. “No, it’s fine.”

“You sure?” He raises an eyebrow and she nods.

“Thanks, though,” She says.

“[That’s disgusting],” Otto murmurs from her side, mouthful.

Liese rolls her eyes before looking back at him. “[Dude, if you don’t shut up, I’ll make sure you don’t have kids ever again],” She threatens.

Her brother chuckles. “[You’re so whipped],” He keeps teasing. “[But he looks whipped, too],” Otto adds.

“Shut up, Otto,” The woman groans, too tired to deal with his bullshit.

“I’m serious,” He insists.

Something happens at the rugby match because everybody cheers and Otto stops teasing his sister, trying to understand what happened. While they watch the game, the men at the table express several emotions with curse words in each sentence.

Liese finds it amusing because they were trying to be very polite and gentlemen with her earlier, avoiding any kind of dirty word or term to not offend her. Now, they’re simply being themselves, without caring about anything. Or they simply forgot about her.

Even Henry, who doesn’t cuss a lot outside the bedroom, has expressed quite a few unpleasant words towards the referee out of discontentment.

It’s completely alright, though. The woman is probably the same or even worse when it’s a football match. As of now, she sips her beer while watching them have some fun.

“FUCK YEAH!” Roger shouts after the referee ended the game, guaranteeing England’s win.

The whole bar cheers and the man looks back, finding Liese’s eyes on him, an amused smirk on her lips. She snuggled closer to Henry during the game and now she’s pressed to his side. Her right foot is propped on her chair and she’s resting a hand on the actor’s thigh, while he has his arm draped over the back of her chair.

Experience taught him to be discreet with relationships, but Liese isn’t giving a single fuck. They were in the Daily Mail last month.

The doctor raises an eyebrow at Roger’s sour expression. “What?” She asks.

“Sorry,” He says meekly.

“What for?” Liese frowns.

“I think I got carried away with the match and forgot about the lady at the table,” The man explains.

She chuckles while Otto and their friends laugh loudly. Roger seems very confused with the reaction to his apology and the other men stare at them with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

“Who’s this lady and when is she coming back?” Otto howls.

“You guys don’t know Lis. This woman is crazy,” Nick says, shaking his head.

“I just met them, idiot!” Liese rolls her eyes.

“Are you trying to impress someone, Bärchen?” Josh asks with a grin.

“Nein,” The woman shakes her head slightly, drinking her beer. “But it looks like I’m about to,” She points out.

“Well, let me tell you a few things about the… lady,” Her brother’s best friend starts.

For the next few minutes, the guys rave on and on about the woman, somehow trying to point out how she’s not a lady.

Henry shifts on his seat. Jealousy is the feeling of the moment. He’s not very fond of four unknown men talking about the woman he’s with, saying things he doesn’t know about her. The simple fact that they know her for longer is unnerving.

“It’s not because she’s my sister, but Lis is like… The baddest bitch I know,” Otto says and I look at him with an amused expression on my face. “I’d take her to every college party I went to.”

“Weren’t you ashamed of bringing your big sister to a party?” Simon asks.

He shakes his head. “The opposite, actually. I wouldn’t beg her to come because she always said yes from the start, but Bärchen was, and still is, the first person I’d call,” Her brother explains.

“Hadn’t you graduated by the time he got into college?” Henry asks the woman.

“Ideally,” Liese nods. “But med school takes forever sometimes. I was starting residency when Otto got into college so, technically, I still was a student,” She says. “And I’d always say yes because med students are fucking boring and never have some fun.”

“Anyway. We’d party so much. Bärchen would drink the same amount of us if not more,” He continues. “In the next morning, she was the one taking care of five or six dudes, I included, in the ER. Hooking us to IV bags or pumping stomachs, as if she had a perfect night of sleep instead of partying with us,” Otto shakes his head, looking at his sister with admiration.

She chuckles. “Alright. You guys are being too nice,” She says. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” John dismisses quickly.

Liese tilts her head and raises an eyebrow, staring at them. “Well, if you’d be so kind as to check out a few bikes for us…” Nick suggests nonchalantly.

Josh scolds him and Pete nudges his arm in a scolding manner as the woman laughs. “See? I knew it!” She grins. “I’ll take a look at my schedule and let you know.”

Her brother nods. “How many siblings do you have?” Roger asks.

“We’re five. Four men and her,” Otto replies.

“So you’re daddy’s little girl,” Juan says.

Some men cringe at that, Henry included, but some laugh, and Liese can’t help but chuckle along. “Please, don’t say that,” Simon says.

“Yes. Dad sometimes pampers me as the only daughter,” Liese replies. “But I know better than waiting for a special treatment being one out of five.”

“Pampers?” Otto asks with sarcasm. “You’re downright spoiled rotten by dad, Bärchen.”

“Am not,” She counters and her brother gives her a pointed look.

“The man nearly died when you moved out and, to refresh your memory, he’d call you multiple times a day or randomly show up at your apartment,” He says.

She tilts her head in thought and slowly nods. “Okay. I might be somewhat spoiled,” The woman agrees. “I’ve just realized he stopped showing up since I moved,” She points out.

“Maybe he doesn’t have a key,” Her brother suggests. “At least he won’t give him a heart attack,” He nods his head towards Henry.

“[Dad doesn’t know about him],” She says in German so only Otto could understand but Josh did too.

“Huh?” The actor asks with a frown.

Otto looks at him and smirks before taking a sip of his beer.

I chuckle before starting to answer. “Since I moved out of my parents, dad would randomly show up at my apartment. Usually in the mornings. He wanted to check if I was okay and would make me breakfast.”

“Spoiled,” Her brother says under his breath and rolls his eyes, earning a slap on his arm.

“He had a spare key, so he’d let himself in,” Liese paused. “He wasn’t happy when I started having guys over…” She trails off and a collective “ooh” feels the table. “Then I lectured him about privacy and boundaries.”

“Did that work?” Simon asks.

“No,” The guys laugh. “But he found out he enjoyed the element of surprise.”

“And being a total creep,” Her brother adds.

“Instead of waking me up, and my company, with a scare, he would sit in the corner of the room or at the end of the bed and watch us sleep,” The guys cringe. “I’ve got used to it pretty quickly but my dad is a big, burly, German guy so it was funny to watch grownup men nearly having a heart attack at the sight of him.”

“How many guys came back?” Brad asks.

“Three,” The woman replies.

“And you guys?” Roger asks Otto.

“Ah, now that’s fun,” He smirks, standing up. “I’m gonna take a piss,” He announces.

A few guys look at Liese. “It’s okay. I’m not offended by that. We’re already established that I’m not a lady. I grew up around men and I’m always around you bunch,” She clarifies.

Her brother says something in German that makes Liese’s jaw drop and Josh laugh loudly. Otto has a massive grin on his face and flinches away from the woman when she reaches out to grab him, nearly stumbling on his own feet. Then, she proceeds to profess multiple curse words at him.

Her angry gaze turns to the man still laughing at the table. “[What do you know about that?]” She asks him, not bothering to switch back to English.

“Bärchen…” Josh gives her a knowing look. “What do you think?”

“[Did that asshole tell you?]” Liese points at Otto, who’s watching from afar.

“No,” The man shakes his head, not giving too much so the others wouldn’t have a clue about what they’re talking about and it’s working.

It’s pissing Henry off.

“[If I ever hear you thinking about it, I’ll kill you],” She threatens.

“Hey. I didn’t bring it up!” Josh defends himself.

“What’s the matter, Bärchen?” Otto smirks from a safe distance.

“Fuck you,” The woman seethes at him.

Eyebrows shot up at her words. “Oh, he’s dead,” Nick shakes his head.

“You can speak German?” Roger asks Josh curiously, after watching the exchange before him and Liese.

“Nein,” The man replies humorously. “Their four-year-old niece speaks better than I do, but I can understand them.”

“Spit it out, Josh,” Liese demands after her brother disappears inside the bathroom.

He was in the middle of drinking from his beer. Instead of swallowing, he inhales and the shit is done. Josh chokes on the beer and spits it at the table, starting a coughing fit.

The woman grimaces. “Not literally, idiot,” She says, throwing a napkin at him. “What happened?” Her tone changes from angry to worried.

“What’s going on?” Henry asks, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Josh starts and coughs a few more times. “He said he couldn’t come tonight and he was all excited, saying he’d get Bobby…”

“Two hours later he showed up, smelling like a bottle of whiskey, and nearly punched me when I asked about Bobby,” John goes on.

Liese groans, covering her face with her hands. “Not this shit again,” She mumbles to herself. “Thank God I have white hair ‘cause this is draining my life force!”

“But he’s not drinking anymore,” Nick points out. “He’s been nursing this pint since he spotted you and that’s warm by now.”

Liese nods along, realizing it now. The pint is full.

“Who’s Bobby?” Henry asks and the woman looks over at him.

When she opens her mouth to explain, Otto appears in the corner of her eye. “I’ll explain it later,” She says. “Not a word about it,” She glares at the others.

“Hi! Can I have a towel?” Josh asks the waiter. “I made a mess, I’m so sorry,” He grimaces apologetically.

Her brother refuses to sit next to her again, knowing he’d suffer for his comment earlier. So he switches seats with Nick. The poor waitress manages to clean Josh’s mess and blushes profusely at his sexy smirk.

“Dude, don’t you have a movie or something coming out anytime soon?” John asks Henry, finally bringing the inevitable Hollywood topic to their conversation.

Henry thinks for a bit. “Yeah, yeah. Mission Impossible is coming out shortly,” He nods.

“Finally,” Simon adds.

The actor chuckles at the comment. “Yeah, finally,” He agrees.

“Oh, shit. I’ve seen the trailer for it! It looks so amazing, mate! When can we watch it?” Josh pipes in, excited.

“Thanks, mate. Uh, I know for sure that the world premiere is gonna be in Paris, 12th of July, to be exact,” He says.

‘That’s close’, Liese thinks to herself.

“But I’m pretty sure there’s a premiere here too, I just don’t know the date. The promotion for this film is gonna be massive,” Henry finishes.

“When are you leaving for it?” His brother inquires.

“Officially, in a couple of weeks,” He replies.

‘Wow’, the woman is impressed by the information she’s hearing for the first time in forever.

“But I have meetings with Dany and there’s a couple of events that I have to go before it, so I’m flying to America next week and just gonna go from there.”

Liese sees the glances she gets from her brother and Josh from the corner of her eye. She simply licks her lips and takes a sip of her pint, acting as if she always knew about everything Henry said.

She can’t help but feel like an idiot that has been strung along all this time. Sure, they’ve never put a label on their relationship but he obviously has been keeping that information for a long time and now the actor slapped an expiration date on whatever they have going on.

However, the woman doesn’t let this affect her night. Everybody drinks and talks with a chill atmosphere around them, but Liese can’t ignore the other pressing issue: Otto’s family drama. She wonders how much longer her brother is gonna play pretend.

So she asks it. “[Otto, for how long are you going to pretend everything is fine?]” The woman bluntly asks.

Even though he’s now sitting across from the table, everybody understands it’s a private conversation since they switch to German.

His whole demeanor changes. “[If we pretend there isn’t a problem, it’ll disappear, right?]” He says sarcastically.

“[Sure. You can also stare at the bottom of a whiskey bottle for the rest of your life but that’s alcoholism],” She replies in the same tone.

Otto sighs and brings his hands to his face, pressing on his closed eyelids. Josh tries not to pay attention to their conversation but he’s equally worried and also curious to know what’s going on.

“[Iris is acting up again, like the fucking maniac she is],” Her brother confesses.

“[Yeah, we already established that you have the worst taste for women],” Liese points out. “[What’s she bitching about now?]”

“[She doesn’t want to allow my daughter to spend time with her fucking father because I date ‘whores and I don’t want my child around this kind of people’,]” He makes air quotes.

Just talking about it angers Otto. His blood boils at the stupidity his former-hookup pulls to make his life a living hell.

He rolls his eyes and his nostrils flare. Suddenly, he feels too sober to deal with it without exploding, so he gulps at his pint, regretting it immediately as the beverage has warmed up to room temperature.

His sister, on the other hand, laughs. But it drips with sarcasm.

“[What a fucking hypocrite],” She shakes her head at it.

“[Tell me about it],” Otto murmurs, searching the waitress with his eyes. “Hey! Could you bring another one to me, please?” He asks in English. “And an Irish Car Bombs,” He orders.

Eyes turn to him at his specific request and Liese shakes her head slightly at Josh.

“Make it two Irish shots,” The woman pipes in and she notices Henry’s glance at her.

“One pint, two Irish Car Bombs,” She repeats to make sure.

“You got it, sweetheart,” Otto nods.

The waitress nods and quickly walks away, blushing. Josh elbows the German guy and gives him a dirty look, making Otto shrug off.

“[What are you going to do?]” Liese brings back the pressing issue.

“[I don’t fucking know!]” Her brother seems desperate. “[I can’t reason with that bitch because she’s beyond it but I want and need to see my daughter as I have the right to].”

“[You can serve her],” She suggests and Otto visibly stiffens at her words. “[Just like she served you for child support that you were already paying],” She points out.

“[Uh, I don’t know about that],” The man hesitates. “[This seems too much. I want to keep my relationship with Iris amicable].”

Liese stares at him like he’s demented. “[Amicable? What’s fucking amicable in that relationship, Otto? She’s literally forbidding you to see your own daughter!]”

“[Still won’t do it. That’s the deep end],” Her brother shakes his head.

Before the woman could say anything else, the waitress came back with their drinks. She quickly set the full glasses on the table before walking away with another blush, now caused by Josh’s wink.

“Stop that,” Liese says to him.

“What?” He asks.

“She’s working. She doesn’t need another man-whore making her night harder.”

“But I’m not doing anything,” Josh complains, smirking.

The woman gives him a dirty look, taking the shot glass. “Bet?” Otto suggests and her eyes turn to him.

“You sure?” A smile starts to creep on her face. “I’m shit at football bets but this,” She makes a face. “This is my shit. To this day, you’ve never managed to beat me,” She points out.

“Yet,” Her brother corrects her. “Tonight is gonna be different,” They clink their shots.

“I don’t know about that,” She tilts her head slightly, tapping the glass on the tabletop as Otto mimics her movements.

Quickly, money piles up in front of John. “Anyone want to bet on my mate Otto to boost up his confidence?” The man asks and Liese throws her head back in laughter.

“You all suck,” Otto scowls at their friends.

Nick explains what they’re betting on and most of Henry’s friends don't believe that the woman can chug down the drink faster than her brother, the actor included. In the end, they’ve gathered two-hundred pounds in total.

“I get a share of this, right?” Liese points to the cash.

“Of course,” Josh winks at her and raises his fist for her to bump.

“There’s no way you can beat him,” Simon interjects, shaking his head in disbelief. “He’s twice your size,” He points out as if it’s a valid point.

She chuckles. “Watch me,” The woman says, picking up her shot glass again. “There’s still time to give up,” She raises an eyebrow at her brother.

“Just do it,” Otto shakes his head.

“Alright. Don’t cheat, you little shit,” She says.

They clink their drinks and tap them on the table again, before eyeing John to do the countdown. After dropping the shot inside the Guinness pint, it’s game. Both of them rush to bring the glass to their lips and chug the drink down faster than the other as the people around cheer.

As announced, the woman beats her brother easily and she puts her glass down with a small smile, licking the foam from her red lips. Their friends celebrate along with James and Juan, who also betted on Liese, as the others look at her in shock.

“I want to marry you so badly right now,” Mark says to Liese.

She chuckles and Otto gives him a dirty look. “With the little faith that you put in me, I don’t think so.”

At the mention of a wedding, some of the guys realized they have wives at home and called it a night. Their table collectively decides to ask for the check to leave.

Josh suddenly disappears as they make their way to the door and Henry gets stopped to take photos with fans. While he does his thing, Liese waits for him, who stays behind with his brother, at the entrance of the bar.

The sound of her laugh makes the actor glance at her and there she is, with the most genuine smile on her face, looking at his friends while sandwiched between Nick and Pete. Her sparkling eyes look up at Nick as he says something and her form shakes with another laugh, her head resting back on Pete’s shoulder.

“Henry, can I take one, too? I’m a big fan!” The female voice makes him look back.

He smiles, momentarily ignoring the scene outside. “Sure.”

Then, he quickly excuses himself and joins the group with Simon. “Oh, no,” Liese says as Mark finishes his story.

“Yeah,” He nods, his lips in a thin line. “But everything is fine now,” He smiles again.

“Well, I’m so sorry about that,” She adds. “You can let me go now - thank you,” She says to Nick and Pete quickly and untangle themselves from her. “There’s a bunch of assholes still in practice. The good ones are rarely seeing patients. Usually, they start to teach. But, in the name of good professionals, I apologize,” The woman continues.

Mark chuckles. “Don’t sweat,” He shakes his head slightly.

“Well, I should go,” Brad starts.

The goodbyes start. Henry’s friend says Liese is great and she says the same to them. They also bid their goodbyes to the woman’s friends.

“There’s one of you missing,” Juan points out.

Pete looks around. “Where the fuck is Josh?”

Liese scoffs. “Where do you think? He’s either coming back with the waitress or her number,” She says after hugging Roger.

They chuckle but agree with her. “Lis, I can drop you off,” John offers as the designated driver for the night.

Her petty self nearly gets the best of her, but she thinks before replying: “It’s fine, John. Thank you, though.”

The man nods and then Liese starts to bid goodbye to them. When Otto opens his arms to hug his sister, she clutches a fistful of his hair. The man hisses in pain as she pulls his head down to her height but he chuckles when she whispers a threat in his ear. She hasn’t forgotten about what he said earlier before sitting across from her to not get punched.

Well, it doesn’t work.

Suddenly, Josh materializes himself as if he was with the group the whole time. Liese turns to him and scowls, in a big sister mode.

“What?” He asks.

“Do not fuck the girl,” She chides.

There it is: his lips pull in a huge grin. “I won’t,” He starts. “Not tonight, at least. But I got her number,” He confesses.

Liese rolls her eyes as the men roar in laughter at her right guess and swat his arm. Either way, she pulls him for goodbye and he plays a chaste kiss on her cheek. For Henry, his lips lingered way too long on his girl.

Everybody parts way and Liese is left alone with Henry and Simon. She hugs his brother and tells him how happy she is for meeting him. He reciprocates all the compliments, adding a few of his own, before getting into an Uber.

“Did you drive here?” The woman looks at him, after what seems like a long time.

“No, I walked,” He replies. “We could get an Uber too,” Henry suggests.

“I’d prefer to walk if you don’t mind,” She tilts her head slightly.

The man nods, motioning her to go ahead. “By all means,” He says and they walk side by side, however, without touching.

After a while, when they’re away from the crowded bar, she sighs with a content smile on her face. “Thank you for letting me come,” Liese says, honestly, looking at him. “I didn’t want to spend the night alone.”

“Of course,” He nods again. “You okay,” He adds as notices her petite form shivering slightly.

She shakes her head, dismissively. “Just a little cold,” The woman replies, looking straight ahead. She halts when Henry’s buff body blocks her way and looks up at him with a frown. “Wha-?”

Liese is cut off by the man pulling his beanie off and carefully puts it on her head. Her heart flutters and she smiles at his focused frown as he adjusts the hat.

“There you go,” Henry says with a nod.

She stands on her tiptoes and presses her lips against his before he could blink again. He becomes stiff from the sudden move but relaxes when she giggles.

“You’re something else,” She whispers against his lips.

Henry smiles and wraps his arm around her to keep her warm before they resume the walk.

* * *

— CHAPTER VIII (COMING SOON)

[buckybarnesthehotshot]

vi: i hate you but tell the team (bucky barnes x reader)

i hate you but masterlist

summary: bucky and y/n can’t stand each other, but y/n needs help with her sister’s kids (enemies to lovers au)

word count: 1692

warnings: swearing, arguing, death, and this is not proofread

taglist is CLOSED

A/N: if ur the anon who requested a part 2 to no way, this is me letting u know it’s in progress dw :))

       “Aren’t you going to go after the other one?” Bucky questioned, staring at the door of the room where Ethan rushed into. y/n gave him a look, as though she too were contemplating if she should talk to Ethan or not, before shaking her head hesitantly and returning to her task at hand; getting Allie to keep her food in her mouth and off her hands.

       “With all due respect, Mister—wait, what’s your name again?” Olivia raised a brow as she tried to recall the same words her baby sister was yelling out again, “Mister Bucky, Ethan’s taking the news pretty hard and he’s stubborn. I don’t think he’d talk to Aunt y/n if she tried to,” Olivia exclaimed, eating a forkful of pancakes.

       “Well, maybe I can talk to him. Man-to-man, you know?” Bucky suggested jokingly. y/n gave him a stern look before shaking her head.

       “I’m not letting you talk to my nephew. Knowing you, you’d eradicate any chances I have of getting him to warm up to me so there is no way in hell you’re talking to him before I get to,” y/n chuckled.

       “You’re my teammate, how could you not trust me?” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

       “Aren’t you the teammate who cracked an egg on my shoe right when I was about to leave for a mission?” y/n questioned, easily recalling the events of last month’s mission.

       That day, Bucky was I charge of making breakfast and when y/n tried moving past Bucky to grab a protein bar from a cabinet, but he wouldn’t let her pass through. Annoyed, she stomped on his toe so she could reach the cabinet. Bucky didn’t really appreciate having his toe stomped on so in retaliation, he tossed an egg onto y/n’s combat boots.

       “It was hilarious!” Bucky exclaimed in his defense.

       “The rookies were laughing at me!” y/n rolled her eyes before tossing a spoonful of Allie’s baby food at his hair.

       “You were their S.O! If they laughed at you, you probably didn’t lecture them well enough on the consequences of laughing at a superior officer,” Bucky pointed out, recalling the times when he had to train a few SHIELD agents who ended up laughing at his manbun. Can you believe the audacity of those rookies?

       “Oh, and you know how to handle a situation any better?” y/n scoffed.

       “As a matter of fact, yes. I made them run twenty laps around the compound,” Bucky smirked proudly.

       “Oh? What were they laughing at you for? Being older than the exhibits at the Smithsonian?” y/n giggled.

       “No. They made fun of my hair,” Bucky frowned, running a hand through his dark brown locks. It was then, y/n broke out it a fit of heavy laughter.

       “God, I forgot you were worse than Thor when it comes to your hair obsession!” she exclaimed, recalling that time he got mad at her for borrowing his conditioner without his permission.

       “At least my hair doesn’t eat the hands of HYDRA agents,” Bucky shook his head. On a mission, one of the HYDRA agents y/n fought made an attempt to drag her by her hair. It did not end well when he realized his gloved hand was stuck in the endless jungle of knots known as y/n’s hair. Not once has Bucky even seen her run a brush through her hair in the compound!

       “Man, that glove was worse than bubble gum,” y/ frowned. The agent’s hand was stuck in her hair so she had to sit next to him on the ride back long enough for Doctor Cho to come up with the best way to remove his hand from her hair. Even after then, y/n still didn’t brush her hair before or after missions.

       “I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you around,” Bucky waved off, grabbing his keys from the countertop before walking out the door.

       “I don’t think you will!” y/n joked out half-heartedly. God, taking care of four kids was more exhausting than taking down a whole HYDRA base. At least villains didn’t make a mess at her apartment like Allie and Jackson did.

       “Oh, so you’re a house aunt now?” Bucky stopped in his steps, leaning against the doorway.

       “I guess. Tell Sam not to call me onto missions if it’s not an emergency, please? Also, if you could explain this clusterf—” y/n stopped herself before she could swear in front of the kids, “—mess to the rest of the team, that would be great,” y/n smiled before feeding Allie her last spoon of baby food.

       “I can’t promise I won’t tell him you kidnapped the kids, though,” Bucky grinned before shutting the door and running down the hall, probably disrupting the residents. Everybody working and living on the compound knew y/n and Bucky would chase each other around the compound when one said something the other didn’t exactly appreciate.

       Which is why it shocked him when she never chased after him that day. Well, she was a busy woman, he shrugged it off and headed down the elevator.

       He drove his motorcycle to where the van was, adjusted the van seats, and slowly lifted his motorcycle in the van. It probably would have been more convenient for him if he’d just asked y/n to drive the van back to the compound rather than him having to haul his motorcycle into the van.

       When he was sure his motorcycle was safely placed in the van, Bucky got in the driver’s seat and drove to the compound; ready to tell Sam about his discovery.

       He parked the van, pulled his motorcycle out, parked that too, and headed into the main lounging area of the compound where he found Sam, Wanda, Clint, Rhodey, and Peter gathered around the TV. The moment the elevator dinged, letting his presence be known, all heads turned to him as though to ask where he’d been…or why he had baby food in his hair.

       “y/n has kids,” Bucky explained quickly, plopping down on the couch between Peter and Sam.

       “y/n? Kids? That’s funny, tell another one,” Wanda chuckled, popping a piece of popcorn in her mouth as her gaze was still fixated on the screen. At this point, she was used to having Bucky and y/n make up rumors about each other and she could not trust a word one would say about the other.

       “Wait, let me rephrase that. Sam, y/n told you she was taking a break because of a family emergency, right?” Bucky questioned, looking expectantly at Sam.

       “Well, yes, but I don’t see how that means y/n has ki—” Sam shook his head only to get interrupted by Bucky shushing him.

       “That family emergency was her sister died a few days ago and y/n got custody of four kids! Look, I know this isn’t easy to believe and shit, but y/n’s the legal guardian of two teenagers and two kids!” Bucky exclaimed, as if he himself could not believe what he’d just witnessed half an hour prior to that.

       “I’m pretty sure y/n didn’t take a break just so you could make up a rumor about her,” Wanda chuckled, shaking her head.

       “That’s the thing! They had a fight over breakfast and y/n was trying to make the little boy stop crying and then the baby started crying so I went over there to pick her up and god, I thought I killed the kid, but I didn’t. Then, she looked up at me with those big e/c eyes while screaming my name. God, that kid was adorable,” Bucky rambled on as though falling into a trance as he remembered the feeling of having someone so innocent look up at him with an emotion that wasn’t fear for once.

       “Assuming this actually happened, how the fuck did you find y/n? Didn’t she block any location tracking on her when we found her at that cooking class?” Clint questioned, raising a brow in disbelief.

       “I made FRIDAY look for my van and it was at y/n’s apartment place. She only let me in because she thought I was the gelato guy,” Bucky chuckled, shaking his head, “God, she looked so tired.”

       “Is there anything else y/n wanted to let us know? She promised we were going to watch all the Star Wars movies next week,” Peter frowned, hitching his feet up onto the table.

       “I’m pretty sure y/n has better things to worry about than a Star Wars marathon,” Sam shook his head in dismissal.

       “She did mention the fact that she’s still willing to go on missions as long as they’re important ones. Like some really ‘life-threatening where a lot of people could die’ type of shit,” Bucky explained with a shrug.

        “I still had no idea y/n had an apartment. I thought she lived on-base when I first met her,” Clint chuckled, shaking his head.

       “Am I the only other one here who’s been to her place?” Wanda’s brows furrowed in confusion.

       “Wait, you’ve been to her place? She told me she had some underground bunker she lives in because she was preparing for the zombie apocalypse and I kind of assumed that was a joke and she just lived here,” Peter shot up from his seat, staring at Wanda in disbelief.

       “Oh yeah, that too. I’ve been to both places. I even have a room in the bunker,” Wanda winked as Peter’s jaw dropped. He thought y/n was joking when she mentioned the underground bunker. I mean seriously, would you take someone seriously if they told you they had an underground bunker beneath central park?

       “Well, I guess if the compound gets compromised during an apocalypse, we know who to follow,” Clint broke out in a fit of laughter. After that, Bucky kind of just blanked out, not really knowing what else to say. It wasn’t as if he knew much about y/n besides the basics and what he’d discovered earlier.

       He leaned back into his chair before stealing Peter’s bucket of popcorn and watching whatever the Avengers decided they wanted to watch that afternoon, ignoring all the teenager’s complaints.

i hate you but taglist: @sarcastic-britt / @kmuir1 / @shower-me-with-roses / @justab-eautifulmess / @thomasthetankson / @x-abi-sharp-x / @intovert-gone-wild / @brittanymcsharry / @leaving-the-past-behind / @xoxabs88xox / @mylifeiscrazy0423 / @howliebucky / @i-cry-so-much​ / @witchything​ /   @naimalove143​ / @simplybarnes​ / @kseniiafirebrace​ / @buckybarnesishot310​ / @witchymarvelspacecase​ /

Forever tags: @spatium-viatorem​​​​ / @sxphiiwrld​​​​ / @strangersstranger​​​​ / @nerdy-bookworm-1998​​​ / @cutie1365​​​ / @valeriiaaass​​ / @adorkably​​ / @whatinthyworld​​ /

MARVEL TAGLIST: @captainamerica-is-bae​​​

BUCKY TAGLIST: @missmidnightxo​​​ / @tinymalscoffee​​ / @howliebucky​​ /

[huearmy]

The Smell of Truth - VII

Summary: After years being forced to fight in clandestine hybrid ring, Jungkook is now living in shelter, but life remains bad, the place is abusive, and nobody seems to want adopt him. Until one night a pro-hybrid activist group invades the shelter, and a woman in black smelling like truth promises that things will get better, and he decides to follow her wherever she goes.

Pairing: pitbull!Jungkook x human!Reader

Genre: fluff, angst, future smut maybe.

Words: 5784

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: None.

A/N: I know, Y/N and Jungkook eat all the time and spend a lot of time on her car.

Chapter I  Chapter II  Chapter III  Chapter IV  Chapter V  Chapter VI

"Jungkook, can you help unload the new merch, please?" Jessi said from behind the cashier, where she was talking with a customer.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Be careful!"

Jungkook dropped what he was doing at the back of the store - cleaning CD shelves and rearranging alphabetically and music genres that customers take out of place - and ran outside by the back exit, where his coworker, another hybrid, was already signing receipt papers in front of a truck. One of the delivery men was already carefully removing some boxes from inside the truck and putting it on the sidewalk.

"What's in the boxes?" He curiously asked.

"These two bigger ones are guitars, they are orders. And those others are smaller instruments, like flutes and harmonicas." The golden retriever with slightly pink hair that he hadn't memorized the name yet said. Was it Ryujin?  "Take care, even if the box is light, everything is very fragile."

"Ok." Jungkook stacked the two heavier boxes, as he saw the delivery guy do, and being careful, he went back inside to store it in the warehouse. In one second he was back to pick the others.

It was his first week on his new job, and obviously, it didn't even surprise you, he chose the music shop. The boy has a great ear and an excellent musical taste, besides music proved to be one of the things he likes most in his new life.

The other day you caught him risking singing softly in his room, when he thought you weren't at home, and in order not to make him uncomfortable, you didn't reveal your presence at all, letting him be. He has a beautiful voice. So, the possibility of being able to discover new music and new artists at work and talk to people with the same tastes as him made Jungkook's round eyes shine like the universe.

Up until then, working was fun, and the coworkers were nice. Maybe it was because of the initial excitement, but Jungkook was efficient and learned quickly, so he was praised almost all the time, which made him blush and have an almost permanent smile. The customers usually think it's cute.

"Ah... excuse me."

Jungkook listened to someone calling, he was at the top of a ladder, arranging some instruments on the top shelf, and looked down to see two high school girls.

"Yes?"  He asked.

The same girl responded.

"I'm looking for new strings for my guitar. Can you help me?" Her voice shook a little, but at the end of the sentence she smiled confidently.

"Sure!" He went down. "Six strings or twelve strings? Nylon or steel strings?"

The two girls looked to each other in confusion.

"Ah... Six and... steel." It was almost a question.

"Ok. I'll get it for you."

From the cashier, Jessi and Ryujin watched the scene with judgmental eyes. Both of them were free, but it was obvious it wasn't their help that these girls wanted. Who knew Jungkook was going to bring new customers just for being handsome.

"I never saw these two here."  Jessi crossed her arms.

"Me neither. Bet she doesn't even have a guitar." Ryujin shrugged.

"I don't care, as long as they buy something." The other shrugged too, leaving to the back of the store.

At this moment Jungkook was coming to the cashier, three packs of guitar strings from three different brands in hand, and speaking the decorated speech they taught him on the first day, followed by the two girls, who were attentively paying attention with heart eyes.

"If you can't or don't know how to put the new strings on the guitar, just bring it here that we put for you... Not we, because I don't know how to put it, but Jessi knows..." Jungkook smiled, and it looked like the girl that didn't talk at all wasn't breathing anymore. He placed the three string options on the counter in front of his coworker, still smiling.

"Are you going to take them all?" Ryujin asked, also with the friendly smile of a good employee.

The girls' eyes widened for a second.

"No." The talkative one replied, perhaps with too much emphasis, and with a quick glance at Jungkook and an embarrassed smile, she added. "Only this one."

Ryujin took the set of strings that the girl chose - the cheapest one - to pass through the barcode reader. After the two paid, Jungkook accompanied them to the exit with a short conversation, implying that the girl should dedicate herself to learning the new instrument and wishing her luck and that she would always return if needing anything. He was happy. Technically this was his first sale ever.

At this moment you pulled over at the other side of the street and jumped off of your SUV. An excited sound left Jungkook's mouth and he beckoned. Remembering to look side to side, you crossed the street, walking straight to him.

"Hey, cutie." You gave him a shiny grin. "I've come to pick you up."

"Hm?" He was surprised, he had walked home by himself everyday since day one, and you didn't say today would be different. "Ok. Want to wait inside till my shift ends?"

You chuckled, looking at your wristwatch.

"Your shift ends in three minutes."

"Really?" His eyes widened, and his hands pulled your arm towards him - consequently you whole - so he could look at the hours too. "Wow. I didn't see the time passing..."

"Go change and pick your things." You bossed, releasing your arm from his hold just to mess up his hair.

He nodded and got back inside, fast stepping to the back of the store. Through the glass in the window you waved to the other two employees, who smiled and waved back. Ryujin seemed torn between running to you to greet you right and giving you love, or staying at her post doing her job, in the end she sent you several different hearts with her hands.

When Jungkook got back, now in his everyday large clothes instead of the shop uniform, you were exactly  on the same spot waiting for him, but now with two ice cream cones.

"I was thinking here, you said 'do you want to wait inside bla bla bla...', but like, I'm your boss, JK. If I wanted to pick you up earlier I could. You know?" You said, talking betwing licks on your ice cream.

Jungshook looked at you with a half-open mouth.

"You wouldn't." He stated.

"Why not?" You took his hand to cross the street.

"Isn't that abuse of power or something? I don't think you look like someone who has favorites... Like, you are too pragmatic, too good girl for that."

You looked offended, as if he had slapped you. You entered the car and waited for him to do the same and close the door behind him.

"First of all... The whole town already knows you, know you are my roommate. Everybody already thinks you are a favorite of mine, so no one would be surprised if I pamper you in public, cuz I do it all the time?? Aaaand...!" You aggressively put your seatbelt on."You know very well I'm part of a group considered a terrorist by the government, which automatically takes from me any title similar to good girl."

"The government is dumb. You are a hero, and this absolutely returns your title as a good girl and its variables." He raised a cocky eyebrow at you.

You started the car and turned it off again, looking at him incredulously.

"On one of our first talks, I literally told you about how I got expelled from the only school I attended in my whole life... I only went to college because my parents are rich and know important people." You shrugged at the end.

"That's not true. You are intelligent and had exemplary grades during college, I heard Jackson talking about it ..." He pointed out, before you could question how he knows it." Besides, you were expelled for protecting your family, and that is heroic to me."

"It was actually revenge and pure violence... But I'm dropping this conversation." You started the car again and it started to move just to stop right then at the red light. "Put some music on."

"Ok." Jungkook obliged. "But seriously, Y/N... Why did you get this offended at being called a good girl? Do you want to be a bad girl?"

Your face heated up. One month ago he didn't even know what playing bickering was and now this...

"Shut up!" You yelled.

He gave a loud laugh, losing it with your flustered face, and all you could do was to laugh along with him. ______________________________________________________________________________ Instead of going home, as Jungkook imagined at first, you had different plans for today. You took the road and in forty minutes you were in the neighboring city parking in front of a movie theater - the kind of thing you don’t have in your city because it’s so small. It was Saturday night and you had reason to celebrate.

"Wow, I've never been to the movies before... What are we watching?"

"You can choose." You pointed to the mural of posters and opening times of the movies. "We can also choose where we'll get dinner."

"I want pizza." He bluntly said.

You chuckled. Of course he wants pizza.

You went to buy snacks and let him get the tickets.Waiting for the big bucket of popcorn, you were humming a song that has been stuck in your head all day and drumming your fingers around the candy display case, considering buying a chocolate bar.

"Are we celebrating something? You look really excited today..." Jungkook came back, stopping by your side, looking you up and down, your whole body expression saying happy puppy to him.

You smiled as if he had catched you on something.

"Is just... You ended your first week of work ever... I finally got what I wanted from my job... We are like, both successful, gorgeous, young and free. We deserve to fill our stomachs with buttered popcorn, gummy bears, pizza and coke."

A wide smile spreaded on his beautiful face, cute teeth showing up and making your own smile wide too.

"What did you want from your job?" He picked the bucket of popcorn from the attendant's hands when you didn't notice it. "Thank you."

"I'll tell you later." You dismissed the question with a hand wave. "What movie we gonna see?"

Jungkook pointed to a dark sign with a putrefied hand coming out of a half-open wardrobe, blood dripping from the doorknob.

"A horror movie? Do you want me to scream in public?" You laughed in self-depreciation.

"I never watched one of these. It should be fun. Don't worry, I will hold your hand." Jungkook inflated his chest and indeed held your hand.

You were actually worried about him, not you. It is not your custom to watch horror movies, usually you only watch the ones with the most hype, but you know they can be very violent, and maybe your cute Jungkook still can't deal with it... Instead of voicing your concerns, you decided to pay attention to see if it really was necessary to worry at all. First sign that he was more uncomfortable than he should be, you would leave the theater.

You reciprocated his hol and scoffed.

"I'm holding your hand." _______________________________________________________________ At the end, your concerns weren't necessary. The movie was kind of trashy, besides some jump scares that got you screaming, and some disgusting, gross special effects that made you feel slightly nauseous, the bloody scenes were funnier than violent, drawing some good laughs from Jungkook. Still, he spent the entire movie holding your hand, as he promised. At the pizzeria the two of you ate until you had to open the button on your pants, still laughing at how bad the movie was, and how the couple sitting in a row in front of you were startled by silly things and made everything funnier. Jungkook was radiant, and that was what you wanted.

"A month from now when I get my first payment, we have to come back here. And I'll pay." Jungkook declared. "What reminds me, what would you say about your job?"

"Hm..." You looked around. The place was considerably crowded, normal movement for a Saturday night, your table was a little isolated, but not enough for you to have this conversation here. "My... friends wanted me to work with a guy. And I finally got the opportunity."

At first Jungkook thought of Jimin and Tae, but then the message sinked in. It was a secret organization's thing.

"Let's go?" You got up from your chair.

"Sure." Jungkook's eyes were big with curiosity. He didn't expect you to tell him about such things, but now you were implying the rest would be said in a more private place.

You two got back to the car with the pizza box with what you couldn’t eat whole and a stuffed animal that Jungkook got from a hook machine on the first try. You were feeling tired and sleepy, not in the mood for driving at all - maybe you should teach Jungkook how to drive for moments like that. You didn't put on some music or asked Jungkook to do so as you usually do.

"The organization has been investigating some lawyers, suspected of facilitating illegal hybrid purchases and transfers, and of covering up such crimes. And I basically need to get proof to frame this guy and expose who he works with." Your eyes were glued on the dark road. "Now I'm going to work directly with him."

"He is a lawyer from your firm?"

"Not yet. He is in the process of being the new partner in the firm. I worked hard to be part of the process or to be designated as his assistant." You explained, still too focused on driving. "I just have to do one mission. Whatever you want to call it. The rest is up to the organization. But for that I need to travel, to work in person, for about a week."

Oh." Jungkook looked at his hands.

Until now he hadn't thought about being alone, by himself. But of course at some point it would happen, you can't live exclusively according to him. He's not the only thing in your life, as he feels you are in his. Suddenly a week seemed like an eternity. Suddenly your apartment looked huge.

"Now I need to know what you want to do." You continued, not noticing the change in his mood.

"What do you mean?"

You made a funny face. It was like you were making a lot of effort to talk about it in a serious tone, but he could see the happy puppy in you again, and it made him relax a little bit, even though he didn't understand why.

"I thought of taking you with me, of course. But you may not want to... Which is ok too. You can stay at home taking care of things and going to work normally... Or you can stay with Taetae and Jimin... which would surely make them happy... " You chattered.

"I want to go with you. I’ll go where you go." He decided, almost solemnly. That sentence gave you both a nostalgic feeling, even though it hasn't been much more than a month since he first said it to you, and your lives changed overnight. You smiled, glad that he chose what you wanted him to.

"Awesome."  Your finger drummed on the steering wheel. "Even if it's a business trip, we're going to have some free time, so I chose a super amazing hotel with lots of things for us to have fun together, and for you to have something to do when I'm at the office. Besides... There are others things that you have to decide..."

Jungkook was already excited about the idea of having fun with you on a trip.

"What is it?"

You sighed, as if you were collecting courage to say what was on your head.

"I am thinking about it for a while now... And my friend from the organization suggested it would be a good idea too. If you were in agreement..." You hesitated. "Would you like to help me?"

Jungkook didn't answer. A stiff silence settled in. In the absence of an answer, you panicked, your fingers tightening the steering wheel.

"It wouldn't be really dangerous, because my task is simple... I would never put you in danger, JK. I don't even get involved in really dangerous situations. It's just because you know about us. I ...I'm sorry."

The silence prolonged.

It was selfish, but you saw in the opportunity of Jungkook working with you in the organization a little of your loneliness fading. Loneliness that is created when you keep a secret even from those you love the most, like your family and the guy who always says he wants to spend the rest of his life by your side. Even your best friends since childhood... Even if you don't hide the truth from them, you can't tell everything either... Your fears and concerns. With Jungkook I would be different. He would be your partner. You could lean on him. It is selfish because you promised him a new life, of peace and tranquility, without even a shadow of the horrible things he lived in the past, and you still don't even know exactly how horrible they were. And in your secret work, bad things can always appear, in one way or another.

"Anyways... One thing we are going to do for sure is bungee jumping. And I think you will love it." You cheered, masking any disappointment you could be feeling.

You chose this double life for a much bigger reason than yourself. You knew from the beginning how it would be. So let's push those bad feelings back inside and move on.

"I'm really... grateful." Jungkook whispered, uncertain voice reaching your ears. "To you, and the organization. I truly think you guys are heros. I would like to be a hero too."

"JK..."

"I trust you." He didn't let you interrupt. "I know that you would never put me in danger or in a situation against my will. You respect me. So I don't have concerns about it. I just don't think I'm going to be very useful... I don't know how to do anything... except to fight. And I will never do that again."

Your hand reached to his on his lap, and as it had become natural his fingers intertwined with yours.

"You don't have to worry about that. I just basically need two little things from you, and I'm sure you got it. One of them you are doing right now."

"And is it?" He was confused. He was doing absolutely nothing. Right?

"I need you to be handsome and charming, just like you are doing now, but in a button-up shirt." You winked at him, making him feel hot, and totally thankful for the darkness so you couldn't see him bright blush. "And that you watch a door for me."

"I-I can do that." ______________________________________________________________________________ The sun didn't even rise yet and you are programming the better route in your gps, sunglasses on the crown of your head, sleep still on your puffy eyes. The suitcases were already in the trunk, and the snacks on the backseat, but for some reason your travel partner was not yet seated beside you, the passenger door he forgot open, letting the morning air in, covering your skin with goosebumps. Is too early to be in a hurry, so even though you have a schedule to follow, you patiently reclined your head on the back of the seat and waited. Jungkook got out the back door of the flower shop, checking twice if he locked the door and turned on the alarm, and then ran to the car. In his hands were his keys, cell phone - that you gave him when he first started working -, and his new wallet - papers and old photograph inside.

"All ready, Y/N!" He entered and closed the door, happy smile on his also puffy face. He was about to put on his seat belt. "Wait!"

"What?" You said in your morning voice - you don't like to speak for the first hour after you wake up at all.

"I forgot my toothbrush." He was already with his hand on the door to go back and get it.

You chuckled and started the motor.

"Sorry, JK. We can buy a new one later... Now we need to hit the road." __________________________________________________________

Just like the suitcases and everything else you would need to travel, at the night before you and Jungkook prepared a travel playlist, specifically songs with road vibes and good for singing at the top of your lungs - your plan was to make him sing along with you to finally praise the beautiful voice you already know he has. If it didn't work, the next plan would be karaoke. It worked. In fact, at start your were all by yourself, you always sing in the car, so he didn't saw it as a invitation to join your personal show, preferring to eat m&m's separated by color while watching you, some hours later tho, motivated perhaps by a specific song or by the energy you established, he gave in, and now you two were having so much fun. The lyrics he didn't know - like the 70s and 80s ones you like because of your mother - you explained about the artists and bands, detailing things about their careers and why you like them, he likes it because he knows more about his job an about you, and the next second you started the next song that you both knew how to sing, there you were joyingly screaming again. You forgot to compliment his voice.

With his mouth full himself, Jungkook filled yours with mini carrots and slices of apple cutted in bunny shape. It was about 10 already, your but was square and legs were sore, you needed to stretch, not to mention your bladder, which should be twice as big as you needed to go to the bathroom.

As if he was reading your mind, the boy beside you whined.

"Y/Nnnnnnnn... I need to pee."

"Me too." You whined back. "Can you wait a little bit more? I planned a stop, and we're almost there."

"Yeah... Sure." He smiled, opening another can of energy drink.

Your look went from the road to him, from him to the can, and from the can to the road again.

"I can't see how drinking another one will help with the bathroom issue..." You mocked.

"I'm also thirsty." He answered as if it was obvious.

Almost half an hour later you parked at a gas station beside the road. As you jumped up the suv, a pursehanging on your arm - with toilet paper and other hygiene items that toilets for community use by the roads don't usually have, you are a prepared woman -, you checked your location to make sure it was the right place. You were supposed to be at a specific gas station at 11am. It only had two bathrooms. One was under maintenance, and the other had a broken lock. At least it wasn't as filthy as you expected it to be.

You handed the purse to Jungkook.

"Go first. I'll guard the door for you." You said.

Jungkook just obeyed, having taken another can and a half of soda after the energy drink. You watched the movement of people and cars, a few filling up with gas, customers at the convenience store, truck drivers stopping for lunch at the restaurant next door. There weren't many people. And you haven't seen anyone paying attention to you.

"Are you looking for something?" Jungkook quietly asked, already beside you.

"Oh. Nothing... I just zoned out. My turn." You run inside the bathroom, remembering your physiological needs.

Back at the car, Jungkook expected you to continue the journey right away, instead you grabbed the steering wheel, still looking through the window with a look so intent that a little line formed between your eyebrows. Jungkook didn't know what was bothering you out of nowhere, but he was willing to help.

"Y/N?" He put a lock of your hair behind your ear so softly that you hardly felt it at all. You looked at him, face unconsciously relaxing. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just a little headache." It wasn't a lie, until he asked you hadn't noticed, but your head was throbbing a little. "We ran out of water, right? I'm going to buy more."

"Want me to go?" He volunteered.

You considered it. He is just so sweet. But not all places are friendly to hybrids on their own, even documented or free ones, you didn't want to find out if the convenience store was friendly or not in the worst way. It was going to ruin the mood of the trip. Strangers mistreating Jungkook for no reason is always the last thing you want in your day.

"Thanks, sweetie." You shook your head negatively. "I'll be right back."

Jungkook followed you with his eyes as you jumped off the car, walking straight with your hands on your jacket pockets, till you disappeared into the store. Last night when both of you were packing your things, you showed him a 'first aid kit bag' you prepared with several remedies you could need, remembering it now, for sure there's something for your headache there. Wanting to help, he got out and opened the trunk.

You said you would put it in your suitcase... Can he open it? Was it an invasion of privacy? Maybe the kit was in the suitcase's outer compartment, and there would be no issue...

A shiver went up his back and a growl formed in his throat, but it didn't come out. Someone was behind him, terribly close, and with a confused smell that made it impossible to know whether they were human or hybrid. Jungkook did not hear the person's footsteps approaching, and that was fearsome.

"Don't turn around, don't try running, and don't scream. Act naturally." A deep voice of a male spoke.

Despite it being low, there was so much force and authority in this voice that Jungkook couldn't desobay. His eyes reached to the store, looking for you.

"Are you Jungkook?" The voice calmly asked.

How could this guy know his name? What does he want? Different thoughts crossed Jungkook's mind, none optimistic, all scary. He wanted you to show up to save him, and at the same time, without knowing exactly what was going on and the risks, he wanted you not to come back, so you wouldn't be hurt. What should I do?

"I'm." He answered, voice firm to not show fear. A voice he is used to using almost all the time, but since you came into his life, he didn't need it anymore.

The man behind him hummed. Jungkook concluded that he must be a hybrid after all, because he had the urge that the guy was smelling him, but he couldn't say for sure, it could just be in his head. How could this guy's voice be so calm and trustful if his presence had all this power that made Jungkook unable to move a muscle? How conflicting, the feelings this caused in Jungkook were unheard of for him, a kind of fear that he never felt before, the fear that his former master imposed through threats and punishments...

Jungkook searched around, wishing the man wouldn't notice it... Somebody... Anybody... At least one person would notice that there was something wrong going on there, and if Jungkook made eye contact, if he managed to ask for help in any way, everything would be fine. But nobody seemed to see them there, nobody noticed. The gas station employees continued to work normally, the customers entering and leaving their cars, totally unaware... How frustrating.

"I'm a Y/N's friend." The man throatily said. "Nice to meet you, JK."

Jungkook's eyes wided. Friend. One of those friends of yours?

The sound of something being placed on the floor caught Jungkook's attention down, next to his feet was now a small black backpack.

"This is for her. Take care, it's fragile."

"What is it?" Jungkook questioned, not trusting at all - he wouldn't give you anything without being sure it's safe - but strangely relaxed for such an unusual situation.

A low, funny sound came from the guy. Was he laughing?

"Something you guys will need." He simply said. One moment of silence and Jungkook thought the guy was gone, but then he spoke again, now his voice seemed a lot less impersonal. "Tell her she's beautiful today. As always. Good luck."

It was not possible to hear the guy's footsteps leaving, just like when he appeared, but Jungkook felt the absence of an extra presence after a few seconds. The guy was some kind of ninja. He bent down to pick up the backpack and slung it over one shoulder, looking around, trying to find someone who could be the intimidating guy... But he found no one. Without thinking much, he took the kit and closed the trunk, returning to the passenger seat, still looking over his shoulder.

A few minutes later you got back, still with a frown in your face.

"I definitely need an aspirin... You got the kit already!" You slammed the door by accident and cringed at the loud noise, you hate to slam your car door.  "Thank you, sweetie... What is it?"

You pointed to the backpack, and Jungkook looked at you with doe eyes. Only now you noticed he was looking frightened.

"Your friend told me it is to you."

Your eyes widened as well and your hand reached your mouth. You were instructed to find someone from the organization at this gas station to receive the necessary equipment for your task. So you were stressed about nobody showing up at the appointed time, it even gave you a headache. Even though you involved Jungkook, you didn't expect them to contact him instead of you. Actually you forgot to tell him about it at all.

"Oh my... JK, I'm sorry I didn't warn you. I guess I still haven't gotten used to having a partner..."

Usually, in this kind of situation, you are all alone or needing to be sneaky around your friend and family. It was out of habit.

"It's ok." Jungkook gave you a sympathetic smile. "What do I do with it?"

"Put it on the backseat." You shrugged and started the car.

"Aren't you checking on it?" Jungkook was surprised. What if it was a bomb? You guys have used bombs before...

"Not here. First we leave." Suddenly you were on your pretty good mood again. "Can you give me an aspirin, please?"

Jungkook gave you the pill and you drank almost an entire bottle of water with it. A car honked past you, because you slowed down, but you just ignored it.

"Did my friend say anything else?" You asked, putting on some low music once again.

Jungkook looked through the window, wishing his cheeks wouldn't get red just because he agrees with what he was about to say. He couldn't look at you to say it when the wind was making your hair move to all directions as if it has his own life, or the sun on your skin makes it shine, or your eyes showing above your sunglasses as you look at him. It wasn't fair.

"He said you are beautiful today.... As always.'

A loud, ringing laugh escaped your lips, forming an incredulous smile.

"I can't believe Yoongi came personally..." You laughed again. "Now make sense... He was checking on you... He didn't let you see him, right?"

"No. He stayed behind me the whole time."

You nodded vigorously, as if that obviously confirmed what you were saying. Jungkook was confused, not understanding anything.

"Who is Yoongi?" He uncertanly asked.

Unlike when you talk about your friends of the organization, almost as if you were telling a story of people who do not exist, perhaps because they are people you work with but generally don't know, neither name nor face, when talking about this Yoongi was much like how you talk about Jimin or Taehyung, a real friend. Only with something more... An admiration that Jungkook hadn't yet heard so present in your voice.

"Min Yoongi." You said, and it was almost possible to see the fire on your eyes. "He is not just one of my friends... He is the boss."

Now it makes sense. It wasn't a ninja. It was the super hero. That is why all thatauthority in his voice and the powerful presence, totally intimidating, but at the same time Jungkook did not feel threatened as he felt so many times before... because there was no real threat. Suddenly Jungkook wasn't frightened or uncomfortable with the situation anymore, he was euphoric. He had met the boss of heroes who save hybrids, and soon he would be one too. Now it seemed a little more real that he could help others like him, just like this Min Yoongi and you.

"What are you smiling at?" You brought him back from his daydream with a teasing smirk.

"It's just... It is exciting." He was clearly excited.

Your smirk wided, eyes on the road. Your partner feels it just like you, and you almost couldn't hold yourself back. You never gave a name to it, and now Jungkook used a perfect word to describe it, and since you can't get out of your head. This secret job... secret life... It really does make you feel like a hero. Sometimes you feel guilty for feeling that way, since you were born on the bad side of history, you are human and humans are the villains. Helping hybrids to fight for justice and gain their freedom is nothing more than your obligation... But with Jungkook you can feel how you want, because you are sure that he will understand and never judge.

"Isn't it, JK?"

You two exchanged a meaningful look. The bond between you becoming stronger without you realizing it.

Just moments later you both excitedly increase the volume of the music that just started so you can sing at the top of your lungs again and again.

__________________________________________________

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